Dock

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dock¹

  • /dɒk/ UK
  • /dɔk/ Australia, British, Scotland, Southern, Standard
  • /dɑk/ US

Sounds like doc, Doc, dark (non-rhotic, father-bother merger) · Rhymes with -ɒk

Where it comes from

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”)).

noun docks

  1. countable, uncountable 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 […]
  2. countable, uncountable A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.

dock²

  • /dɒk/ UK
  • /dɔk/ Australia, British, Scotland, Southern, Standard
  • /dɑk/ US

Sounds like doc, Doc, dark (non-rhotic, father-bother merger) · Rhymes with -ɒk

Where it comes from

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.

noun docks

  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
  2. obsolete The buttocks or anus. And on a Cuſhion ſtuffed with Flocks, / She clapt her dainty pair of Docks.
  3. A leather case used to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.

verb docks · docking · docked

  1. transitive 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 when the master of Mohair was superintending in person the docking of some two-yea
  2. transitive To reduce (wages); to deduct from (someone). Her wages were docked by ten dollars.
  3. informal, transitive To reduce the wages of (a person). They docked me ten dollars for breaking the vase.
  4. transitive To cut off, bar, or destroy. to dock an entail
  5. transitive 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 too quickly and also result in an uneven surface for your filling. Docking is simp

dock³

  • /dɒk/ UK
  • /dɔk/ Australia, British, Scotland, Southern, Standard
  • /dɑk/ US

Sounds like doc, Doc, dark (non-rhotic, father-bother merger) · Rhymes with -ɒk

Where it comes from

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.

noun docks

  1. US 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.
  2. UK The body of water next to and around a pier.
  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. abbreviation, ellipsis Ellipsis of scene-dock.scene-dock

verb docks · docking · docked

  1. intransitive 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 and North Korean militaries working together like this.
  2. To join two moving items. to dock spacecraft
  3. To move a spaceship into its dock/berth under its own power.
  4. intransitive, slang 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. transitive To drag a user interface element (such as a toolbar) to a position on screen where it snaps into place.
  6. transitive To place (an electronic device) in its dock. I docked the laptop and allowed it to recharge for an hour.

dock⁴

  • /dɒk/ UK
  • /dɔk/ Australia, British, Scotland, Southern, Standard
  • /dɑk/ US

Sounds like doc, Doc, dark (non-rhotic, father-bother merger) · Rhymes with -ɒk

Where it comes from

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.

noun docks

  1. Part of a courtroom where the accused sits.

Dock⁵

Where it comes from

* As an English surname, possibly from the noun duck.

* As a Norwegian surname, from Old Norse dǫkk (“pit, depression”), from Proto-Germanic *dankwaz (“dark”).

* As a German surname, spelling variant of Docke, related to the noun Tuch (“cloth, piece of fabric”).

proper noun

  1. US, dated, rare A male given name or nickname.
  2. A surname.

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