paperweight
nounEtymology From paper + weight.
1
A small, decorative, somewhat weighty object placed on one or more pieces of paper to keep them from fluttering away.
- 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.2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:
2
Any object used for this purpose.
- John used his coffee mug as a paperweight.
3
Slang A useless piece of equipment.
- On Windows, the card has a working driver. On Linux right now, it's a paperweight.