Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who is employed to guard an entrance or gateway.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who guards the door or entrance of a house or an apartment, and admits persons entitled to admittance; a janitor.
  • noun In the early church and in the Roman Catholic Church, same as ostiary.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who guards the entrance of a house or apartment; a porter; a janitor.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The person in charge of an entryway, sometimes just a doorman, sometimes something more.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who guards an entrance
  • noun an official stationed at the entrance of a courtroom or legislative chamber
  • noun the lowest of the minor Holy Orders in the unreformed Western Church but now suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

door + keeper

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Examples

  • Then a pretty little girl, Tilly Turtelle, who seemed quite a premature flirt, proposed "doorkeeper" -- a suggestion accepted with great _eclat_ by all the children, several grown people assenting.

    Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor Thomas L. Masson 1900

  • He took them and, shutting the door of the closet upon Abu Sir, fared forth without telling any; and the doorkeeper was then at market and thus saw him not go out.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • The doorkeeper will be the Commonwealth summit's host, President

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2003

  • The doorkeeper was a tall, willowy man wearing a jacket and pantaloons of brown silk.

    Lord of the Isles 1997

  • In this case we can't believe the doorkeeper is the man's subordinate.

    The Trial Franz Kafka 1903

  • 'Where the doorkeeper is a churl, what will folk say of the master of the house?' said Scudamore.

    St. George and St. Michael George MacDonald 1864

  • 'Where the doorkeeper is a churl, what will folk say of the master of the house?' said Scudamore.

    St. George and St. Michael Volume I George MacDonald 1864

  • Whether the maid who was told off by the elder Milton to sit up till twelve or one o'clock in the morning for this wonderful Pauline realized that she was a kind of doorkeeper in the house of genius, and blessed accordingly, is not known, and may be doubted.

    Obiter Dicta Second Series Augustine Birrell 1891

  • In this case we can’t believe the doorkeeper is the man’s subordinate.

    The Trial 1925

  • This was gained by descending again to the cellar, by surrendering the brass check to a burly doorkeeper, and by climbing a long flight of stairs into the upper regions.

    COFFEE-HOUSES AND DOSS-HOUSES 2010

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