dock

English Online Dictionary. What means dock‎? What does dock mean?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /dɒk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /dɑk/
• Rhymes: -ɒk
• Homophones: doc, Doc; dark (non-rhotic, father-bother merger)

Etymology 1

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

dock (countable and uncountable, plural docks)

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.
2. A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English dok (“trimmed hair, dock”), from Old English *docce, *docca (as in fingirdoccana (“finger muscles”, genitive plural)), 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

dock (plural docks)

2. The fleshy root of an animal's tail; specifically after clipping or cutting.
3. (obsolete) The buttocks or anus.
4. A leather case used to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.

Translations

Verb

dock (third-person singular simple present docks, present participle docking, simple past and past participle docked)

2. (transitive) To clip or cut off a section of an animal's tail; to practise a caudectomy.
3. (transitive) To reduce (wages); to deduct from (someone).

4. (transitive, informal) To reduce the wages of (a person).

5. (transitive) To cut off, bar, or destroy.

7. (transitive, cooking) To pierce holes, as pricking dough with a fork, to prevent excessive rising in the oven.
   • Emma Christensen (2008 July 11) “How and When to Dock a Pie Crust”, in The Kitchn‎^[3]:

Translations

Etymology 3

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

dock (plural docks)

2. (US, nautical) A fixed structure attached to shore to which a vessel is secured when in port; usually for loading and unloading.

   Synonyms: dockyard, pier, quay, wharf

   Hypernyms: mooring, moorage
4. (UK, nautical) The body of water next to and around a pier.

   Synonyms: harbor (US), harbour (UK), slip, berth

5. The area of arrival and departure of a train in a railway station.
6. A section of a hotel or restaurant.

8. (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.

   Hyponym: docking station

10. (graphical user interface) A toolbar that provides the user with a way of launching applications by their icons, and switching between running applications.
11. An act or instance of docking; joining two things together.
12. (theater) Short for scene-dock.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

dock (third-person singular simple present docks, present participle docking, simple past and past participle docked)

1. (intransitive) To land at a harbour.

   Coordinate terms: berth, moor

   • 29 February 2012, Aidan Foster-Carter, BBC News North Korea: The denuclearisation dance resumes[4]

     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. (astronautics) To move a spaceship into its dock/berth under its own power.
4. (intransitive, sex) To engage in docking; to insert the tip of one participant's penis is inserted into the foreskin of the other participant.
5. (transitive, graphical user interface) 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.

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 4

Originally criminal slang; from or akin to obsolete Dutch (West Flemish) dok (“cage, hutch”) or docke (“cage”), from Middle Dutch docke (“coop for animals”), from Proto-Germanic *dukją, *dugją (“enclosed or contained space”) (compare Old High German dogga (“barrel”), Middle Low German docke (“small house”), of uncertain origin, possibly borrowed from a non-Indo-European substrate.

Noun

dock (plural docks)

2. (law) Part of a courtroom where the accused sits.

Derived terms

Translations

References

Further reading

• “dock”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “dock”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Swedish

Etymology

From Old Swedish doch, dogh, dog, thoch, thok, tog, from Middle Low German doch, from Old Saxon thōh‚ from Proto-West Germanic *þauh. Replaced native Old Swedish þo, from Old Norse þó.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɔkː/

Adverb

dock

1. though, however, still, nevertheless