paperweight

See also: paper-weight

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

paper + weight

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Noun

paperweight (plural paperweights)

  1. A small, decorative, somewhat weighty object placed on one or more pieces of paper to keep them from fluttering away.
    • 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:
      The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.
  2. Any object used for this purpose.
    John used his coffee mug as a paperweight.
  3. (slang) A useless piece of equipment.

Translations

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