half step

1. 1.

   the musical interval between adjacent keys on a keyboard instrument

   Synonymssemitone

   Broaderinterval

Questions about half step

What does half step mean?

half step means "the musical interval between adjacent keys on a keyboard instrument".

What is another word for half step?

Close synonyms include semitone. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is half step a common word?

half step is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.