DOORSTEP

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does doorstep mean? 

• DOORSTEP (noun)
  The noun DOORSTEP has 1 sense:

1. the sill of a door; a horizontal piece of wood or stone that forms the bottom of a doorway and offers support when passing through a doorway

  Familiarity information: DOORSTEP used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DOORSTEP (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The sill of a door; a horizontal piece of wood or stone that forms the bottom of a doorway and offers support when passing through a doorway

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

doorsill; doorstep; threshold

Hypernyms ("doorstep" is a kind of...):

sill (structural member consisting of a continuous horizontal timber forming the lowest member of a framework or supporting structure)

Holonyms ("doorstep" is a part of...):

door; doorway; room access; threshold (the entrance (the space in a wall) through which you enter or leave a room or building; the space that a door can close)

 Context examples 

I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned—I wrung my hands—I wept in utter anguish.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Often, something that happens in the outside world that had nothing to do with you oddly winds up at your doorstep and has a huge effect on you.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Uncle Henry sat upon the doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

Squatted on the doorstep, he was engaged in most carefully examining that which the man had brought from the house.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Here I sat down on a doorstep, quite spent and exhausted with the efforts I had already made, and with hardly breath enough to cry for the loss of my box and half-guinea.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Alleyne promised to be there if his duties would allow, and then, slipping through the crowd, he rejoined Ford, who was standing in talk with the two strangers, who had now reached their own doorstep.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He went to call indeed; but he was perhaps relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to speak with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that house of voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable recluse.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Often things going on in the outside world that you are not part of—or don’t even know about—come to your doorstep and wind up affecting you directly.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

And now I’ll be too late with a murder done on my own doorstep.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

So, carefully and gently, they lifted Dorothy in their arms and carried her swiftly through the air until they came to the castle, where they set her down upon the front doorstep.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)