Word.ws English Dictionary

at the door

at the door prepositional phrase: used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see at, the, door.

Prepositional phrase

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see at, the, door.
    • Colette had met them at the door and told them what they owed and they laughed at her.2021, Michael Farris Smith, chapter 40, in Nick, New York; Boston; London: Little, Brown and Company, page 205
  2. Ringing the doorbell or knocking on the door.
    • That would be Mom at the door.
    • The delivery man is at the door.
  3. At the first threshold of the event itself rather than in advance.
    • You can buy tickets at the door, but they will be pricier.

Questions about at the door

What does at the door mean?
At the door means used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see at, the, door.
What part of speech is at the door?
At the door is a prepositional phrase.

Words near at the door in the dictionary

  1. at the bottom of the pile
  2. at the coal face
  3. at the corner
  4. at the cost of
  5. at the disposal of
  6. at the door
  7. at the door of
  8. at the double
  9. at the drop of a hat
  10. at the earliest
  11. at the elbow

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: at the door (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “at the door.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/at_the_door. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.