paddock

A small enclosure or field of grassland, especially one used to exercise or graze horses or other animals.

Noun also, figuratively

  1. A small enclosure or field of grassland, especially one used to exercise or graze horses or other animals.
    • Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock. - 1813 January...
    • A jargonell pear tree at one end of the cottage, a rivulet, and flower-plot of a rood in extent, in front, and a kitchen-garden behind; a paddock for a cow, and a small field, cultivated with several crops of grain...
    • [H]e has delineated estates of romance, from which their actual possessions are shanties and paddocks. - 1844, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Essay VI. Nature.”, in Essays: Second Series, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and...
  2. An enclosure next to a racecourse where horses are paraded and mounted before a race and unsaddled after a race.
    • We left the carriage, bought programmes, and walked across the infield and then across the smooth thick turf of the course to the paddock. […] The paddock was fairly well filled with people and they were walking the...
    • You remind me of a two-year-old, Dinny—one of those whipcordy chestnuts that kick up their heels in the paddock, get left at the post, and come in first after all. - 1931 November, John Galsworthy, chapter XXIV, in Maid...
  3. An area at a racing circuit where the racing vehicles are parked and worked on before and between races.
  4. A field on which a game is played; a playing field.
  5. A field of grassland of any size, either enclosed by fences or delimited by geographical boundaries, especially a large area for keeping cattle or sheep.
  6. A place in a superficial deposit where ore or washdirt (“earth rich enough in metal to pay for washing”) is excavated; also, a place for storing ore, washdirt, etc.

Origin

The noun is almost certainly a variant of dialectal British parrock (“enclosure; park; croft, small field, paddock”), from Middle English parrok, parrock (“enclosed pasture, paddock; coop; feeding stall; cabin, hut”) [and other forms], from Old English pearroc, pearruc (“fence used to enclose a space; area enclosed by such a fence, enclosure”), from Proto-West Germanic *parruk (“enclosure; pen for animals”), from Proto-Germanic *parrukaz (“fence; enclosure”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *barō (“bar, beam; barrier”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“to pierce; to strike”). Equivalent to park + -ock. Doublet of park. The verb is derived from the noun. Cognates * Danish park (“pond”) * Dutch perk (“flowerbed; garden; pen”) * German Pferch (“sheepfold, sheep-pen”)

Forms

paddocks

Derived

a kangaroo loose in the top paddock kangaroos in the top paddock long paddock paddockful paddock-stool Paddock Wood Pagan's paddock

Noun Australia, New Zealand

  1. A frog.
    • Cold as a paddock.
    • Also the Lord seide to Moises, Entre thou to Farao, and thou schalt seie to hym, The Lord seith these thingis, Delyuere thou my puple, that it make sacrifice to me; sotheli if thou nylt delyuere, lo! Y schal smyte alle...
    • It is apparent that there be three kinds of Frogs of the earth, the firſt is the little greene Frog: the ſecond is this Padocke, hauing a crooke back, called in Latine Rubeta Gibboſa, and the third is the Toade,...
  2. A toad.
    • Where I was wont to ſeeke the honey Bee, / Working her formall rowmes in Wexen frame: / The grieſlie Todeſtoole growne there mought I ſe / And loathed Paddocks lording on the ſame. - 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund...
    • Padock calls anon: faire is foule, and foule is faire, / Houer through the fogge and filthie ayre. - c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies,...
    • [F]rom the hall wherein the mourners died / A grey wolf glared, and o'er his head the bat / Hung, and the paddock on the hearth-stone sat. - 1870, William Morris, “October: The Man Who Never Laughed Again”, in The...
  3. A contemptible, or malicious or nasty, person.
    • [T]here was grandfaither's siller tester in the puddock’s heart of him. - 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Black Andie’s Tale of Tod Lapraik”, in Catriona, London; Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, →OCLC, page 182:

    Synonyms: assbag assbreath assbucket asscunt assface assfag assfaggot assfuck assfucker asshat asshead asshole assmonkey assmouth assmunch assmuncher asstard asswagon assweed asswipe bag of dicks ball sack ballsucker barf bag

  4. A simple, usually triangular, sledge which is dragged along the ground to transport items.

Origin

From Middle English paddok, paddoke (“frog; toad”) [and other forms], from pad, pade (“frog; toad”) + -ok (diminutive suffix). Pad, pade is derived from Old English *pada, *padda, padde, from Proto-West Germanic *paddā, from Proto-Germanic *paddǭ (“toad”); further etymology uncertain, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew- (“to swell”). The English word is analysable as pad (“(Britain, dialectal) frog; toad”) + -ock (suffix forming nouns, originally with diminutive senses). Sense 2 (“sledge”) is probably from the supposed resemblance of the object to a frog or toad.

Forms

paddocks padock puddock

Related

shelpad

Derived

paddock pipe paddock stone paddock-stool paddock stool shell-paddock

Verb

  1. To place or keep (cattle, horses, sheep, or other animals) within a paddock (noun sense 1 or 2.4); hence, to provide (such animals) with pasture.
    • In the district of which I am speaking the sheep are all "paddocked," —that is to say, kept in by fences—so that shepherding is unnecessary. - 1873, Anthony Trollope, “[South Australia.] Wool.”, in Australia and New...
    • Now, if you went down into the forest where the spring gum-tips gleam gold and ruby in whatever sunshine, Heaven thinks fit to apportion at this season to residents of the Dandenongs (who surely were all born Aquarians)...
  2. To enclose or fence in (land) to form a paddock.
    • When a run is "paddocked," shepherds are not required;—but boundary-riders are employed, each of whom is supplied with two horses, and these men are responsible not only for the sheep but for the fences. - 1873, Anthony...
  3. To excavate washdirt (“earth rich enough in metal to pay for washing”) from (a superficial deposit).
  4. To store (ore, washdirt, etc.) in a paddock (noun sense 2.5).

Forms

paddocks paddocking paddocked