dock
UK /dɒk/ · US /dɑk/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms docks docking docked
- noun 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.
- noun A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.
- noun The fleshy root of an animal's tail; specifically after clipping or cutting.
- noun (obsolete) The buttocks or anus.
- noun A leather case used to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.
- verb (transitive) To clip or cut off a section of an animal's tail; to practise a caudectomy.
- verb (transitive) To reduce (wages); to deduct from (someone). “Her wages were docked by ten dollars.”
- verb (transitive, informal) To reduce the wages of (a person). “They docked me ten dollars for breaking the vase.”
- verb (transitive) To cut off, bar, or destroy. “to dock an entail”
- verb (transitive, cooking) To pierce holes, as pricking dough with a fork, to prevent excessive rising in the oven.
- noun (US, nautical) A fixed structure attached to shore to which a vessel is secured when in port; usually for loading and unloading.
- noun (UK, nautical) The body of water next to and around a pier.
- noun The area of arrival and departure of a train in a railway station.
- noun A section of a hotel or restaurant. “coffee dock”
- noun (electronics) 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.
- noun (graphical user interface) A toolbar that provides the user with a way of launching applications by their icons, and switching between running applications.
- noun An act or instance of docking; joining two things together.
- verb (intransitive) To land at a harbour.
- verb To join two moving items.
- verb (astronautics) To move a spaceship into its dock/berth under its own power.
Synonyms
dockyard pier quay wharf harbor harbour slip berth sorrel sour grass wharfage loading dock dockage docking facility bobtail bob tail
Antonyms
Etymology
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”)).
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.
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 word to Italian doccia (“drainpipe”), making dock a doublet of douche and duct.
An alternative theory ties Middle Dutch docke to a North Germanic or Scandinavian source, notably Old Norse dǫkk, dökð (“depression in the landscape, pit, pool, trench”); compare Icelandic dökk, Norwegian dokk (“hollow, low ground”), Swedish dank (“marshy ground”). If so, this would make dock a doublet of dank.
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.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A genus of plants (Rumex), some species of which are well-known weeds which have a long taproot and are difficult of extermination.
- noun The solid part of an animal's tail, as distinguished from the hair; the stump of a tail; the part of a tail left after clipping or cutting. Grew.
- noun A case of leather to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.
- verb to cut off, as the end of a thing; to curtail; to cut short; to clip; as, to dock the tail of a horse.
Etymology [AS. docce; of uncertain origin; cf. G. docken- blätter, Gael. dogha burdock, OF. doque; perh. akin to L. daucus, daucum, Gr. Burdock.]
Etymology [Cf. Icel. dockr a short tail, Fries. dok a little bundle or bunch, G. docke bundle, skein, a short and thick column.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “dock”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details