Meaning & use
stepsister
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Meanings
nouncountable
A girl or woman who becomes your sister because your parent marries her parent, though you do not share a parent by birth.
Grammar: Countable and written as one word: my stepsister.
Patterns
- my stepsister
- become someone's stepsister
My stepsister and I share a room during the holidays.
She became his stepsister when their parents married.
Her stepsister is two years older and studies law.
nouncountablefigurative
A woman who is the daughter of your stepparent from an earlier relationship, as seen in a fairy tale.
Grammar: In stories, stepsisters are often shown as jealous characters.
Patterns
- the ugly stepsisters
In the fairy tale, Cinderella's stepsisters were cruel.
The play's stepsisters are comic characters.
The film gave the stepsisters a more sympathetic story.
Word forms
| plural | stepsisters |
|---|
Common combinations
- older stepsister
- My older stepsister helps me with homework.
- younger stepsister
- His younger stepsister loves football.
- ugly stepsisters
- The ugly stepsisters in the pantomime are played by men.
- get on with a stepsister
- She gets on well with her stepsister.
- my stepsister's wedding
- We traveled to my stepsister's wedding.
Synonyms and how they differ
- half sister
- A half sister shares one biological parent with you, which a stepsister does not.
- sister
- Sister without a prefix usually means a biological sibling, though many people use it for step relations they are close to.
- stepsibling
- Stepsibling is gender-neutral and covers both sisters and brothers.
- stepdaughter
- Stepdaughter is the child of your spouse, not a sibling.
Word family
- stepbrother noun
- a stepparent's son
- stepmother noun
- your father's wife who is not your birth mother
- stepfather noun
- your mother's husband who is not your birth father
- stepchild noun
- the child of your spouse from a previous relationship
- stepfamily noun
- a family formed by remarriage
Commonly confused: stepsister or half sister?
stepsister vs half sister
A half sister shares one parent with you by birth. A stepsister shares no birth parent and is linked by your parents' marriage.
Practice
Tina's mother married Ben's father, and Ben has a daughter, Lucy, from an earlier marriage. Lucy is Tina's ______.
Choose one answer.
Lucy is the daughter of Tina's new stepparent, so she is a stepsister. A half sister would share a birth parent with Tina, and a cousin or stepdaughter would be a different relationship.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “stepsister”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.