doorstep

plural doorsteps

1. architectureAn outside step leading up to the door of a building, usually a home.

   Ailie was standing by the doorstep as he came down the road, and her heart stood still with joy.

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

   2 more examples

   With a little manœuvring they contrived to meet on the doorstep which was […] in a boiling stream of passers-by, hurrying business people speeding past in a flurry of fumes and dust in the bright haze.

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

   The narrow streets that twist and turn through the compact heart of Dent are surfaced with cobbles which, in the absence of pavements, spread right across from doorstep to doorstep.

   1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 150

   Synonyms: doorsill

2. figurativelyOne's immediate neighborhood or locality.

   They want to build the prison right on our doorstep; it will only be half a mile away and being that close scares me.

   2 more examples

   As a Hitchin signalman once pointed out to me, when a regulating quandary arises concerning a fast-moving Class A train there is no time to consult Control and get their answer before the express is on one's doorstep.

   1962 May, G. Freeman Allen, “Traffic control on the Great Northern Line”, in Modern Railways, page 343

   Milk from the Eden Valley could be on London doorsteps the next morning. Limestone and agricultural lime from the Ribble Valley and gypsum from further north could at last be transported long distances by the trainload. The railway had been driven along, over and through the valuable substances that were on its doorstep, much akin to the situation in Britain's coalfields.

   2021 November 17, Mark Rand, “Reconnecting rail freight to S&C quarries”, in RAIL, number 944, page 52

3. UKinformalA thick slice, especially of bread.

   I cut myself a doorstep of bread with masses of butter and went along to see Romanov while I was eating it.

   2003, Diana Wynne Jones, The Merlin Conspiracy, P 241, →ISBN

present singular third person doorsteps · participle present doorstepping · participle past doorstepped · past doorstepped

1. intransitiveTo visit one household after another to solicit sales, charitable donations, political support, etc.
2. transitivejournalismTo corner somebody for an unexpected interview.

   Surprisingly few people refused to talk, even those I doorstepped or telephoned out of the blue.

   2006, Denis O'Hearn, Nothing But an Unfinished Song

   1 more example

   Throughout her time in journalism, she doorstepped politicians, the child of a politician, crime victims, armed robbers, murderers, suspected murderers...

   1998, Emily O'Reilly, Veronica Guerin: The Life and Death of a Crime Reporter