service door
1
3.5
- noun
- /ˈsɜrvɪs dɔr/
:
puerta de servicio
- They often deliver supplies through the service door instead of the main entrance.
- used the service door
Examples
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The staff entered through the service door to ensure the restaurant remained private for the guests.
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Enter the next service door on your right.
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There's a service door on your left.
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He's at the service door.
-
The sidewalk ended at a service door.
Fiction book (1991) -
There's a dozen service doors from here to there.
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He unlocks another service door with his card and enters.
Fiction book (1991) -
She exited at a run through the service door so she wouldn't have to encounter her boyfriend, who remained standing in front of the main entrance waiting for her.
Fiction book (1995) -
The maintenance workers used the service door to access the building without disturbing the patrons.
Synonyms
10
3.4
An entrance at the back of a building used by staff, for deliveries, or to take out rubbish
1
6.7
A separate door at the back or side used by staff and for deliveries
How Private
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'service' functions as a modifier indicating the purpose of the door (for service/staff/deliveries), so a learner who knows both words can infer it is a door used for service-related access. This noun–noun attributive pattern is common cross-linguistically and follows straightforward English composition, making the phrase predictable for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Service door comes from the simple picture of a service area and a door at the back of a building where workers bring supplies or take out trash. It is the door used by 'staff', for 'deliveries', or for 'trash', not the main public entrance, so the term means a door meant for work use.