different between spontaneous vs doorstop

English

Etymology

Late Latin spont?neus, from Latin sponte (su?) (“of one's free will, voluntarily”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /sp?n?te?.ni.?s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /sp?n?te?.ni.?s/
• Rhymes: -e?ni?s

Adjective

spontaneous (comparative more spontaneous, superlative most spontaneous)

1. Self-generated; happening without any apparent external cause.

   He made a spontaneous offer of help.

2. Done by one's own free choice, or without planning.
3. Proceeding from natural feeling or native tendency without external or conscious constraint
4. Arising from a momentary impulse
5. Controlled and directed internally; self-active; spontaneous movement characteristic of living things
6. Produced without being planted or without human cultivation or labor.
   • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, vol. IV, ch. 106:

     [H]e persisted in his design; and, because he would not make his wants known, actually subsisted for several days on hips, haws and sloes, and other spontaneous fruits which he gathered in the woods and fields.

7. Random.
8. Sudden, without warning.

Synonyms

• (self-generated): autonomous
• (done by one's own free choice): autonomous
• (proceeding from natural feeling...): autonomous
• (sudden, without warning): abrupt, precipitous, subitaneous; see also Thesaurus:sudden

Derived terms

• spontaneity
• spontaneously

Related terms

• spontaneous combustion

Translations

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