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Glite Dictionary
walk-up

walk-up

3 5.6
A building with several floors and no elevator where you must use stairs
  • noun
  • /ˈwɔːkˌʌp/
translation icon : edificio sin ascensor
  • Daniel Hernandez, 49, and environmental studies professor Nevin Cohen, 44, share a five-story walk-up in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan.

Examples

  • I grew up in the South Bronx in a sixth-floor walk-up.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • I can remember living in this teeny-tiny little walk-up and being really happy.

    Material Girls (2006)

  • Our 3rd floor walk-up hotel room with the bath and toilet down the hall was a typical British experience.

    Blog text (9)

  • When he finally went home to New York, he disappeared into a fifth-floor walk-up whose lack of luxury has to be seen to be believed.

    Academic text (2010)

  • I found the most incredible place, a fifth-floor walk-up on the Lower East Side.

  • When I lived in a small fifth-floor walk-up apartment in New York, I was new to fine cooking.

  • Vasquez, from a working-class family, lives in a modest walk-up on the Upper East Side.

Synonyms

walk-up apartment
vswalk-up
1 3.9

A home in a building with no elevator that you reach by stairs

includes whole buildings as well as single homes without elevators

Antonyms

elevator
  • US
760 1.0

A machine that carries people and things up and down between floors

How High

high-rise
7 3.5
walk-up
3 5.6
low-rise
2 4.0

Surface Forms

walk-up singular
walk-ups plural

Morphology

walk-up = walk + up (transparent) = walk + up

The noun denotes a building you must 'walk up' (use stairs), so the meaning is directly deducible from its components.

Etymology

Walk-up comes from the simple parts walk and up, literally 'walk' and 'up', showing you must go upward on foot. It names an apartment or building with no elevator where you have to climb the stairs, so the word helps you remember you reach it by walking up.