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doorknob

UK/ˈdɔː.nɒb/US/ˈdɔɹ.nɑb/
nounA2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #6,430 of 15,258mostly spoken

Other forms: doorknobs

A doorknob is the round handle you turn to open a door. Turn the doorknob, a brass doorknob, the doorknob came off.

A lever is easier than a knob for anybody with weak hands, which is why accessibility rules in many countries require levers on public doors. Brass ones kill bacteria on their own surface within hours, which is why hospitals once favoured them.

GFreihalter · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of doorknob

  1. 1noundoorknobThe round handle used to open a door.A2+

    “She turned the doorknob slowly and pushed the door open.”

doorknob is a handle.

Also accepted in games: door handle

Where it comes from

Door plus knob. Knob comes from a Low German word for a lump or bump, related to knop.

From door + knob.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Around the House

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doorknob in the wild

  • A door handle or doorknob is a handle used to open or close a door.

    Door handle

  • The most common types of door handle are the lever handle and the doorknob.

    Door handle

  • A real-estate lock box is a padlock-shaped box that generally hangs around the doorknob of a house that is on the market.

    Real-estate lock box

  • Maud Lucile Eastwood was an amateur historian and collector of antique doorknobs.

    Maud Eastwood

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.