paperweight

See also: paper-weight

English

Alternative forms

• paper-weight (archaic)

Etymology

paper +‎ weight

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (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

small, decorative, somewhat weighty object

• Belarusian: прэс-пап'е́ n (pres-papʺjé)
• Bulgarian: преспапие́ n (prespapié)
• Catalan: petjapapers m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 鎮紙／镇纸 (zh) (zhènzhǐ), 紙鎮／纸镇 (zhǐzhèn), 書鎮／书镇 (zh) (shūzhèn), 紙壓／纸压 (zh) (zhǐyā)

• Czech: těžítko (cs) n
• Dutch: presse-papier (nl)
• Finnish: paperipaino (fi)
• French: presse-papiers (fr) m, presse-papier (fr) m
• Galician: calcapapeis m
• German: Briefbeschwerer (de) m
• Greek: πρες παπιέ n (pres papié)
• Hungarian: papírnehezék
• Irish: tromán páipéir m
• Italian: fermacarte (it) m
• Japanese: 文鎮 (ja) (ぶんちん, bunchin), 卦算 (ja) (けいさん, keisan)
• Korean: 문진 (ko) (munjin)
• Norman: paids à papi m
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: brevpresse, papirvekt m or f

  Nynorsk: papirvekt f

• Polish: przycisk do papieru m
• Portuguese: pisa-papéis m (Portugal), peso de papel m (Brazil)
• Romanian: prespapier (ro) n
• Russian: пресс-папье́ (ru) n (press-papʹjé)
• Slovak: ťažítko n
• Slovene: obtežilnik m
• Spanish: pisapapeles (es) m
• Swedish: brevpress (sv)
• Turkish: prespapye
• Ukrainian: прес-пап'є́ n (pres-papʺjé)
• Vietnamese: bàn thẩm, chặn giấy

any object used for this purpose

• Czech: těžítko (cs) n
• Finnish: paperipaino (fi)
• French: presse-papiers (fr) m
• German: Briefbeschwerer (de) m
• Hungarian: nehezék (hu), papírnehezék
• Italian: fermacarte (it) m
• Norman: paids à papi m
• Polish: przycisk do papieru m
• Portuguese: pisa-papéis m (Portugal), peso de papel m (Brazil)
• Russian: пресс-папье́ (ru) n (press-papʹjé)
• Spanish: pisapapeles (es) m

slang: useless object

• Finnish: verkonpaino (fi)
• Polish: złom (pl) m