dock

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The area of water between two piers or alongside a pier that receives a ship for loading, unloading, or repairs.
2. n. A pier; a wharf.
3. n. A group of piers on a commercial waterfront that serve as a general landing area for ships or boats. Often used in the plural.
4. n. A platform at which trucks or trains load or unload cargo.
5. v. To maneuver (a vessel or vehicle) into or next to a dock.
6. v. To couple (two or more spacecraft, for example) in space.
7. v. To move or come into a dock.
8. n. The solid or fleshy part of an animal's tail.
9. n. The tail of an animal after it has been bobbed or clipped.
10. v. To clip short or cut off (an animal's tail, for example).
11. v. To deprive of a benefit or a part of one's wages, especially as a punishment: The company docks its employees for unauthorized absences.
12. v. To withhold or deduct a part from (one's salary or wages).
13. n. An enclosed place where the defendant stands or sits in a court of law.
14. idiom. in the dock On trial or under intense scrutiny.
15. n. See sorrel¹.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The common name of those species of Rumex which are characterized by little or no acidity and the leaves of which are not hastate. They are coarse herbs, mostly perennials, with thickened rootstocks. Some of the European species are troublesome weeds and widely naturalized. The roots are astringent and slightly tonic and laxative, and have been used as a remedy in cutaneous affections and numerous other diseases. Particular designations are bitter dock, R. obtusifolius; curled or yellow dock, R. crispus; fiddle-dock (from the shape of the leaves), R. pulcher; golden dock, R. maritimus; patience dock, R. Patientia; sharp or sour dock, R. Acetosa; swamp-dock, R. verticillatus; water-dock, R. Britannica and R. Hydrolapathum; and white dock, R. salicifolius.
2. n. A name of various other species of plants, mostly coarse weeds with broad leaves, as dovedock, the coltsfoot, Tussilago Farfara; elf-dock, the elecampane, Inula Helenium; prairie-dock, Silphium terebinthinum; round dock, the common mallow, Malva sylvestris; spatter-dock, the yellow pond-lily, Nuphar advena; sweet dock, Polygonum Bistorta; velvet dock, the mullen, Verbascum Thapsus. See burdock, candock, and hardock.
3. n. The tail of a beast cut short or clipped; the stump of a tail; the solid part of a tail.
4. n. The buttocks; the rump.
5. n. The fleshy part of a boar's chine, between the middle and the rump.
6. n. A case of leather to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.
7. n. A piece of leather forming part of a crupper.
8. n. The crupper of a saddle.
9. n. The stern of a ship.
10. To cut off, as the end of a thing; cut short; clip; curtail: as, to dock the tail of a horse.
11. Hence To deduct a part from; shorten; curtail; diminish: as, to dock one's wages.
12. Nautical, to clue up (a corner of a sail) when it hinders the helmsman from seeing: usually with up.
13. To cut off, rescind, or destroy; bar: as, to dock an entail.
14. n. In hydraulic engin., strictly, an inclosed water-space in which a ship floats while being loaded or unloaded, as the space between two wharves or piers; by extension, any space or structure in or upon which a ship may be berthed or held for loading, unloading, repairing, or safe-keeping. The water-space may communicate freely with the stream or harbor, or the entrance to it may be closed by a gate or by a lock. If provided with a lock or gate, the level of the water within the dock remains at all times nearly the same, as the gate is opened only at full tide, when the level without and within is the same. If a lock is employed, vessels can pass in and out at all stages of the tide, but this does not materially affect the level of the water inside the dock. In an open dock the tide continually lowers or raises the vessel, and this interferes in some degree with the work of loading or unloading. The closed docks are free from this inconvenience, while a greater advantage is found in the absence of currents. In a larger sense the term is also applied to a basin or inclosed water-space for the storage of floating timber or the safe-keeping of river-steamers, barges, or canal-boats laid up for the winter, and by a further extension is made to include the wharves and warehouses on or in the neighborhood of a dock. The largest closed docks are at Liverpool and London, in England. In a particular sense the term is also applied to the construction and apparatus used in repairing and building ships, as the floating dock, dry-dock, depositing-dock, and sectional dock.
15. To bring or draw into or place in a dock.
16. n. The place where a criminal stands in court.
17. n. Rumex persicarioides, an American species long confounded with the golden dock of the Old World, found on sandy shores from New Brunswick to Virginia and westward to Kansas and New Mexico, and also on the Pacific coast.
18. In biscuit- (cracker-) making, to prick holes in (each biscuit) before it is put in the oven, to provide for the escape of moisture.
19. n. Docks are distinguished broadly as wet docks, or those consisting of an inclosed water-space or basin in which ships lie to take in or discharge cargo, and which cannot be pumped dry; and dry-docks, in which vessels can be taken entirely clear of water. The latter are divided into excavated or graving-docks, slip-docks, lifting-docks, and floating docks. A basin dock is a wet dock whose entrance is continually open to the tide; a closed dock, one whose entrance is closed by a lock, caisson, or gate so as to maintain the interior water-level approximately constant. A slip-dock is one in which a vessel is partially hauled out on a marine railway in a slip provided with gates which are closed at low tide, excluding the water from the vessel. A lifting-dock is one in which a submerged platform on which the ship is landed on blocks and is then raised vertically clear of the water with the ship by hydraulic power. An off-shore dock is a floating dock with a bottom aud one side wall, maintained in an upright position by means of upper and lower parallel booms attached to the side wall and to strong vertical columns built on the foreshore. A box-dock is a floating dock whose ends can be closed by caissons or gates after the entrance of the vessel, the interior space being then pumped out as in a graving-dock. A balance-dock is the ordinary type of floating dock with open ends, in which the side walls arc utilized as ballast compartments to maintain the dock in level balance. A self-docking floating dock is one so arranged in detachable sections that all its underwater parts can be successively docked by the remaining parts for examination and repairs.
20. n. In railroading, a track at a siding or in a freight yard, having a raised platform on each side for convenience in loading at the level of the car door.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of the genus Rumex of coarse weedy plants with small green flowers related to buckwheat, especially the common dock, and used as potherbs and in folk medicine, especially in curing nettle rash.
2. n. A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.
3. n. The fleshy root of an animal's tail.
4. n. The part of the tail which remains after the tail has been docked.
5. n. obsolete The buttocks or anus.
6. v. To cut off a section of an animal's tail.
7. v. To reduce (wages); to deduct.
8. n. A fixed structure attached to shore to which a vessel is secured when in port.
9. n. The body of water between two piers.
10. n. A structure attached to shore for loading and unloading vessels.
11. n. A section of a hotel or restaurant.
12. n. electronics A device designed as a base for holding a connected portable appliance such as a laptop computer (in this case, referred to as a docking station), or a mobile telephone, for providing the necessary electrical charge for its autonomy, or as a hardware extension for additional capabilities.
13. n. computing, graphical user interface A toolbar that provides the user with a way of launching applications, and switching between running applications.
14. n. An act of docking; joining two things together.
15. v. intransitive To land at a harbour.
16. v. To join two moving items.
17. v. transitive, computing To drag a user interface element (such as a toolbar) to a position on screen where it snaps into place.
18. n. Part of a courtroom where the accused sits.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A genus of plants (Rumex), some species of which are well-known weeds which have a long taproot and are difficult of extermination.
2. n. 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.
3. n. A case of leather to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.
4. v. to cut off, as the end of a thing; to curtail; to cut short; to clip.
5. v. To cut off a part from; to shorten; to deduct from; to subject to a deduction.
6. v. To cut off, bar, or destroy.
7. n. An artificial basin or an inclosure in connection with a harbor or river, -- used for the reception of vessels, and provided with gates for keeping in or shutting out the tide.
8. n. The slip or water way extending between two piers or projecting wharves, for the reception of ships; -- sometimes including the piers themselves.
9. n. The place in court where a criminal or accused person stands.
10. v. To draw, law, or place (a ship) in a dock, for repairing, cleaning the bottom, etc.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. deprive someone of benefits, as a penalty
2. n. a platform where trucks or trains can be loaded or unloaded
3. v. come into dock
4. n. the solid bony part of the tail of an animal as distinguished from the hair
5. v. maneuver into a dock
6. n. landing in a harbor next to a pier where ships are loaded and unloaded or repaired; may have gates to let water in or out
7. n. a short or shortened tail of certain animals
8. n. a platform built out from the shore into the water and supported by piles; provides access to ships and boats
9. n. an enclosure in a court of law where the defendant sits during the trial
10. v. remove or shorten the tail of an animal
11. v. deduct from someone's wages
12. n. any of certain coarse weedy plants with long taproots, sometimes used as table greens or in folk medicine