noun
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a step in front of a door
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very close or accessible
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informal a thick slice of bread
verb
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to canvass (a district) or interview (a member of the public) by or in the course of door-to-door visiting
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(of a journalist) to wait outside the house of (someone) to obtain an interview, photograph, etc when he or she emerges
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of doorstep
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It’s a career-making night in New York City that puts an American on the doorstep of a long-awaited title.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 11, 2026
Tourists hauled their suitcases over the doorstep into the fray, fresh off a flight or rushing to make one, if only they could get one last chicken finger first.
From Slate ● Aug. 24, 2026
Irina Aguirre spends her days on the doorstep of one such building, just off the Plaza San Francisco.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
She had never imagined the water would reach her doorstep.
From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026
Way back before Mami was even born, Chucha had just appeared at my grandfather's doorstep one night, begging to be taken in.
From "How the García Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez
It took advantage of a trade exemption that allowed it to ship orders directly from overseas warehouses to American doorsteps duty free.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
Across the world, policymakers living the real-world impact of a war on their doorsteps took a much more sober view of developments.
From Barron's ● Apr. 17, 2026
Groceries, books, soft drinks and even the occasional iPhone can now be delivered to people's doorsteps in minutes.
From BBC ● Jan. 30, 2026
The group has put child care workers who are not leaving their homes in touch with an organization called Food Justice DMV that is delivering meals to their doorsteps.
From Salon ● Sep. 12, 2025
“I left him,” said Mike, “a setting on some doorsteps round the corner.”
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
