lépésre

Lépésre is a Hungarian expression built from the noun lépés (step) combined with the postposition -re. It denotes distance or proximity that is measured in steps, and it can function as a fixed phrase in everyday speech. The form is flexible with numerals and quantifiers, producing phrases such as egy lépésre, két lépésre, harminc lépésre, etc.

In usage, lépésre commonly expresses physical distance. Examples include: A kút öt lépésre van. (The well is five steps away.) Az ablak harminc lépésre van tőle. (The window is thirty steps away from him/her.) The construction can also indicate immediate proximity in a broader sense, as in egy lépésre van tőlem (someone is one step away from me). The phrase is typically used with verbs like van or áll, and with numerals or determiners.

Lépésre is often contrasted with lépésről, which means “from a step” and is used in different grammatical contexts, such as discussing movement from a position. The well-known expression lépésről lépésre means “step by step,” where the meaning expands beyond a literal distance to describe a gradual process. While lépésre appears in ordinary measurements of distance, step-by-step is a set idiom.

See also: Hungarian measurement expressions, postpositions in Hungarian, step-by-step (lépésről lépésre).