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doorknob

nounverbattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈdɔː.nɒb//
  • United States//ˈdɔɹ.nɑb//

A circular device attached to a door, the rotation of which permits the unlatching of the door.

noun

  1. 1

    A circular device attached to a door, the rotation of which permits the unlatching of the door.

    A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place.

  2. 2

    informalA stupid person.

Etymology

From door + knob.

verb

  1. 1

    (especially psychiatry) To suddenly bring up a time-consuming topic when very little time remains to discuss it, often as a tactic to avoid conversation.

Forms

plural
doorknobs
past tense
doorknobbed
past participle
doorknobbed
present participle
doorknobbing
third person singular
doorknobs
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).