dock

The fleshy root of an animal's tail; specifically after clipping or cutting.

Noun nautical, transport

  1. A fixed structure attached to shore to which a vessel is secured when in port; usually for loading and unloading.
    • With just the turn of a shoulder she indicated the water front, where, at the end of the dock on which they stood, lay the good ship, Mount Vernon, river packet, the black smoke already pouring from her stacks. - 1910,...

    Synonyms: dockyard pier quay wharf

    Hypernyms: mooring moorage

  2. The body of water next to and around a pier.

    Synonyms: harbor harbour slip berth

  3. The area of arrival and departure of a train in a railway station.
  4. A section of a hotel or restaurant.
    • coffee dock
  5. A device designed as a base for holding a connected portable appliance for providing the necessary electrical charge for its autonomy, or as a hardware extension for additional capabilities.
  6. A toolbar that provides the user with a way of launching applications by their icons, and switching between running applications.
  7. An act or instance of docking; joining two things together.
  8. Ellipsis of scene-dock.

Origin

A dock (etymology 3, noun sense 1, etymology 3, noun sense 2) for cruise ships A laptop docking (etymology 3, noun sense 5) station A GUI dock (etymology 3, noun sense 6) on Linux From Early Modern English meaning "area of mud in which a ship can rest at low tide, dock", borrowed from either Dutch dok (“dock, wharf”) or Middle Low German docke (“dock, wharf”), both from Middle Dutch docke (“port, harbour”), of uncertain origin. The original sense may have been "the furrow a grounded vessel makes in a mud bank". Compare Danish dok, Dutch dok, West Frisian dok, German Dock, Low German Dock, Swedish docka. Some sources link this word to an unattested Middle Dutch *docke (“watercourse, trench, canal”), which is a ghost word, only being inferred from Mediaeval Latin documents in the form of ducta, doctus, doccia (“conduit, canal”). However, if this theory is correct, then it would relate the...

Forms

docks

Derived

airdock balance dock Barry Dock cattle dock dock connector dock door docker dockhand dockie dockization dockize dockland docklands dockless docklike dockman dockmaster dockmistress dockominium dockside dock walloper dock walloping dock warrant dock worker

Noun Entry 2

  1. The fleshy root of an animal's tail; specifically after clipping or cutting.
    • The Dock is about 1 inch thick, and two inches broad, like an Apothecaries Spatule. Of what length the whole, is uncertain, this being only part of it, though it looks as if cut off near the Buttock - 1681, Nehemiah...
  2. The buttocks or anus.
    • And on a Cuſhion ſtuffed with Flocks, / She clapt her dainty pair of Docks. - 1665, Charles Cotton, Scarronnides:
  3. A leather case used to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.

Origin

A horse with a fully docked (etymology 2, verb sense 1) tail A dog with a partially docked (etymology 2, verb sense 1) tail From Middle English dok (“trimmed hair, dock”), from Old English *docce, *docca (as in fingerdocce (“finger muscles”)), from Proto-West Germanic *dokkā, from Proto-Germanic *dukkǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeu-k- (“to spin, shake”). Compare Icelandic dokkur (“stumpy tail”), Low German Dokke (“bundle of straw”), West Frisian dok (“bunch, ball (twine)”), Albanian dak (“big ram”), Lithuanian dvė̃kti (“to breathe, wheeze”), dvãkas (“breath”), Sanskrit धुक्षति (dhukṣati, “to blow”). The verb is from Middle English dokken (“to cut short, dock, curtail”), derived from the noun.

Forms

docks

Noun Entry 3

  1. Any of the genus Rumex of coarse weedy plants with small green flowers related to buckwheat, especially bitter dock (Rumex obtusifolius), and used as potherbs and in folk medicine, especially in curing nettle rash.
    • And vnder neath him his courageous ſteed, / The fierce Spumador trode them downe like docks […] - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie,...
  2. A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.

Origin

From Middle English dokke, from Old English docce, from Proto-West Germanic *dokkā, from Proto-Germanic *dukkǭ (compare Old Danish dokke (“water-dock”), West Flemish dokke, dokkebladeren (“coltsfoot, butterbur”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰew- (“dark”) (compare Latvian duga (“scum, slime on water”)).

Forms

docks

Derived

bloody dock butterdock candock curled dock dock leaf docklike dock pudding dooryard dock elf-dock northern dock patience dock prairie dock red-veined dock spatterdock waterdock wood dock yellow dock

Noun law

  1. Part of a courtroom where the accused sits.

Origin

Originally criminal slang; from or akin to obsolete Dutch (West Flemish) dok (“cage, hutch”) or docke (“cage”), possibly from Middle Dutch docke (“block, wooden object”), related to Middle Low German docke (“tenon, banister rod, bench cheek, side panel of a pew”), of uncertain origin.

Forms

docks

Derived

in the dock jump the dock

Verb Entry 5

  1. To land at a harbour.
    • On 28 February, for example, a US Navy ship docked in Nampo, the port for Pyongyang, with equipment for joint searches for remains of US soldiers missing from the 1950-1953 Korean War. China may look askance at the US...

    Coordinate Terms: berth moor

  2. To join two moving items.
    • to dock spacecraft
    • A “moving platform” scheme[…]is more technologically ambitious than maglev trains even though it relies on conventional rails. Local trains would use side-by-side rails to roll alongside intercity trains and allow...
  3. To move a spaceship into its dock/berth under its own power.
  4. In male homosexual sex, to engage in docking, the inserting of the tip of one participant's penis into the foreskin of the other participant.
  5. To drag a user interface element (such as a toolbar) to a position on screen where it snaps into place.
  6. To place (an electronic device) in its dock.
    • I docked the laptop and allowed it to recharge for an hour.

Forms

docks docking docked

Antonyms

undock

Derived

dockable dockage docking redock undock

Verb Entry 6

  1. To clip or cut off a section of an animal's tail; to practise a caudectomy.
    • The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track.[…]Their example was followed by others at a time...
  2. To reduce (wages); to deduct from (someone).
    • Her wages were docked by ten dollars.
    • The team have been docked six points at Paris 2024 and Priestman received a one-year football ban from world governing body Fifa. - 2024 July 28, “Priestman 'heartbroken' by drone scandal as funding pulled”, in BBC:
  3. To reduce the wages of (a person).
    • They docked me ten dollars for breaking the vase.
  4. To cut off, bar, or destroy.
    • to dock an entail
  5. To pierce holes, as pricking dough with a fork, to prevent excessive rising in the oven.
    • Pricking holes in the rolled-out pie dough allows the steam to escape while it's baking. Without this, the steam would puff up in bubbles and pockets throughout the crust, which would make some parts of the crust cook...

Forms

docks docking docked