different between doorstop vs doorstopper

English

Alternative forms

• doorstopper

Etymology

door +? stop

Pronunciation

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.
   • 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.

Translations

Anagrams

• doorpost

English

Etymology

door +? stopper

Noun

doorstopper (plural doorstoppers)

1. A doorstop: a device for halting the motion of a door.
2. (humorous) A large book, which by implication could be used to stop a door.
   • 2018, Joe Humphreys, Enlightenment Now: A Manifesto for Science, Reason, Humanism and Progress by Stephen Pinker review [1],

     So Steven Pinker is stretching the genre with his 450-page doorstopper Enlightenment Now: A Manifesto for Science, Reason, Humanism and Progress.

3. A gauge used in geophysics.