abstract:In phonetics, upstep is a phonemic or phonetic upward shift of tone between the syllables or words of a tonal language. Upstep is much rarer as a phoneme than its opposite, downstep.
Let's start with what you might call its legacy ergonomics: the skirt-splitting upstep into the cabin, the pewlike seating position, the scant legroom and the lack of a telescopic steering column.