doorstep

From door +‎ step.

• Rhymes: -ɛp

doorstep (plural doorsteps)

1. Step of a door. The threshold of a doorway.
   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 10, in The China Governess‎:

     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.

   On one's doorstep.

2. (figuratively) One's immediate neighbourhood 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.

3. (Britain, informal) A big slice, especially of bread.
   • 2003, Diana Wynne Jones, The Merlin Conspiracy, P 241 →ISBN

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

doorstep (third-person singular simple present doorsteps, present participle doorstepping, simple past and past participle doorstepped)

1. (transitive, journalism) To corner somebody for an unexpected interview.
   • 1998, Emily O'Reilly, Veronica Guerin: The Life and Death of a Crime Reporter:

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

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

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

• ambush journalism

• droopest, optrodes, pet doors, torpedos