doorstep
/ˈdɔːstɛp
/noun
1A step leading up to the outer door of a house: he put his foot on the doorstep of the cottage...
- I smiled hesitantly at her and she grinned back as she stepped over the doorstep and into our house.
- I took the long way around, and when I came closer I could see her sitting on the doorsteps to the back door of the house.
- When I take my first step off of the doorstep, I hear the door behind me open and I can feel his eyes on my back.
1.1British informal A thick slice of bread: [as modifier]: doorstep sandwiches...
- There are lovely thick doorsteps of toast dripping with butter.
- And I was cutting the cheddar into pretty thick slices figuring I would make a proper doorstep sandwich and maybe smear some Branston pickle on the cheese, yeah?
- To serve, you can stick a wedge on a plate with a huge green salad, but my personal favourite is to whack a wedge between two doorstep slices of bread, then smother with ketchup.
verb (doorsteps, doorstepping, doorstepped) [with object] British informal
(Of a journalist) wait uninvited outside the home of (someone) in order to obtain an interview or photograph: he was being doorstepped by the tabloids...
- A shadow passes over his face as he thinks back on how one tabloid journalist doorstepped his parents and his ex-girlfriend, and even fired questions at the local librarian.
- He also leisurely re-decorated his Georgian rectory in Norfolk where he had moved to avoid journalists doorstepping him in London.
- If he were being doorstepped by tabloid journalists that'd be one thing; when he's apparently made the decision to pad out a perfectly engaging subject with irrelevant personal-life candyfloss himself, that's quite another.
Phrases
on one's (or the) doorstep