English

Noun

doorstop ‎(plural doorstops)

1. Any device or object used to halt the motion of a door, as a large or heavy object, a wedge, or some piece of hardware fixed to the floor, door or wall.
2. (humorous) A large book, which by implication could be used to stop a door.
   • 2010, Jack Hitt, Is Sarah Palin Porn?, Laura Flanders (editor), At The Tea Party: The Wing Nuts, Whack Jobs and Whitey-Whiteness of the New Republican Right... and Why We Should Take It Seriously, page 206,

     Meanwhile, all the Democrats had to put forward that year was a doorstop called Man of the House: The Life and Political Memoirs of Speaker Tip O'Neill.

3. (Britain) (in error for doorstep) A thick sandwich.
4. (Australia) An interview with a politician or other public figure (apparently informal or spontaneous but often planned), as they enter or leave a building.
   • 2005, Mark Latham, The Latham Diaries, page 106,

     And television dominates this place — just look at Beazley tossing around cans of tomato soup at his morning doorstops outside Parliament House.

   • 2006, Troy Bramston, The Wran Era, page 244,

     The six o′clock news was regarded as the pivotal point in the day. As the news was beginning, often the Premier would make himself available for a doorstop press conference.

   • 2010, Anne Tiernan, Patrick Weller, Learning to Be a Minister: Heroic Expectations, Practical Realities, page 218,

     It was estimated, for example, that Treasurer Wayne Swan had given more than 250 interviews and doorstops by the end of his first year in office.

Anagrams

• doorpost