stepper motor

noun

: a motor whose driveshaft rotates in small steps rather than continuously

called also stepping motor

Examples of stepper motor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
On Earth, the stepper motor was tested to about 250,000 steps, enough to operate during Voyager 1’s flybys of Jupiter and Saturn over a four-year span. Ashley Strickland, CNN Money, 27 Apr. 2026 The subsystems of the instrument include a telescope and magnetospheric particle analyzer, which have a 360-degree view thanks to a rotating platform powered by a stepper motor. Ashley Strickland, CNN, 5 Mar. 2025 Those watches, and today’s watches, used a kind of synchronous direct-current stepper motor called a Lavet motor, invented in 1936 by Marius Lavet, a French engineer. IEEE Spectrum, 17 Nov. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1961, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of stepper motor was in 1961

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Cite this Entry

“Stepper motor.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stepper%20motor. Accessed 5 Jul. 2026.

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