stepping stone to success
1
3.4
- noun
:
escalón hacia el éxito
- Many consider failure as a stepping stone to success because it provides valuable lessons.
Examples
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Her internship was a stepping stone to success in her career.
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Turns out they are just stepping stones to success.
Blog text (31) -
Yup, my mistakes were indeed stepping stones to success.
Blog text (31) -
Joining that club proved to be a stepping stone to success for his future networking opportunities.
Synonyms
103
3.2
An important event that shows progress in a person's life or project
18
3.6
A thing that helps you make progress toward a goal
3
8.2
An initial success that opens the way for more progress
1
3.6
A way to reach success in work or goals
Antonyms
How Helpful
104
3.7
103
3.2
∞
2.0
1
3.4
∞
1.0
∞
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase uses a clear physical-to-figurative mapping: combining 'step' and 'stone' evokes a small aid for moving forward, and 'to success' specifies the goal, so the overall idea of an experience that helps progress is inferable. However, this is a metaphorical extension rather than a literal compositional meaning, so a learner must perform figurative inference; many B1 learners will guess it but some may not, making it partially but not fully transparent.
Etymology
Stepping stone to success may come from the picture of crossing a river on stones: you move by stepping from one stone to the next. Each stone helps you move forward, so the phrase means a small event that helps you reach 'success'.