escalator

The word comes from Escalator, a trademark created by American inventor Charles Seeberger in 1900, built from Latin ē- ("from, out of") plus scala ("ladder") plus the agent-noun suffix -tor.

What began as a protected trademark for Seeberger's invention eventually became a generic term for any moving staircase, losing its capital letter and its brand status along the way.

Its broader modern usage may also be shaped by the verb escalate, since some speakers analyze the word as escalate plus -or rather than tracing it back to Latin scala.