English

Noun

paperweight ‎(plural paperweights)

1. A small, decorative, somewhat weighty object placed on one or more pieces of paper to keep them from fluttering away.
   • 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:

     The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.

2. Any object for this purpose.

   John used his coffee mug as a paperweight.

3. (slang) An otherwise useless piece of equipment.

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