Other forms: ladders
A ladder is what you climb to reach high places like a roof. Two long sides and a row of rungs between them.
Types have their own names: a stepladder stands on its own, and an extension ladder slides out. The word is one of English's favourite images for progress, giving us the career ladder, the property ladder and climbing the ladder. British English has a second sense entirely, since a ladder in a stocking is the vertical run where the knitting has come undone, which Americans call a run.
1nounladderA climbing frame of two uprights joined by rungs.
“He steadied the ladder against the gutter.”
2nounseriesA series of steps towards advancement.
“She was already halfway up the career ladder.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
A ladder is a leaning thing. The Proto-Indo-European root behind it meant to lean, which is both what a ladder does and what it is for.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱley-
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱlóydʰrom
Proto-Germanic
*hlaidrijō
Proto-West Germanic
*hlaidriju
Old English
hlǣder
Middle English
ladder
English, today
ladder
Built from
Middle English ladder, laddre; from Old English hlǣder, from Proto-West Germanic hlaidriju, from Proto-Germanic hlaidrijō, from Proto-Indo-European ḱlóydʰrom, from ḱley- (“to lean”). Compare Scots ledder, frr ladder, stq Laadere, West Frisian ljedder, Dutch ladder, German Leiter; also Old Irish clithar (“hedge”), and xum 𐌊𐌋𐌄𐌈𐌓𐌀𐌌 (“stretcher”). See lean, which is related to lid. Further include ask istrī, bsh c̣ik, prn čik, čix; wbk c̣iř, Sanskrit श्रिति.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA