step out

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step out (third-person singular simple present steps out, present participle stepping out, simple past and past participle stepped out)

1. (transitive) To exit a place on foot, often for a short time.

   She opened the car door and stepped out of the car.

2. (intransitive, idiomatic) To date, to be in a romantic relationship.

   They've been stepping out since he told her he was interested in a family.

3. (military) To increase the length, but not the rapidity, of the step.
   • 1989, H[arry] T[aylor], transl. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, translation of original by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, →ISBN, page 225:

     […] they had marched past Poincaré at Peterhof, the Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich stepping it out on the right flank with his perfect martial bearing and an air of desperate bravery about him, saluting and giving this honored guest eyes right.

4. (colloquial, chiefly imperative) Hurry up; get a move on.

   Synonym: step lively

   • 1952, Charles Hamilton, Billy Bunter and the Blue Mauritius

     "Look here, Bunter, step out," exclaimed Harry Wharton, impatiently. "Do you want lines from Quelch, you fat chump?" Billy Bunter did not step out. He remained where he was, and jerked a fat thumb up the woodland footpath.

• (to be in a romantic relationship): go out; see also Thesaurus:date

• step out on someone

• outstep, puttoes, toupets