Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A short stocking reaching a point between the ankle and the knee.
  • noun Meteorology A windsock.
  • noun A light shoe worn by comic actors in ancient Greek and Roman plays.
  • noun Comic drama; comedy.
  • transitive verb To provide with socks.
  • intransitive verb To hit or strike forcefully; punch.
  • intransitive verb To deliver a blow.
  • noun A hard blow or punch.
  • idiom (sock it to (someone)) To deliver a forceful comment, reprimand, or physical blow to someone else.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A dialectal form of sog.
  • noun Same as soke.
  • noun A light shoe worn by the ancient actors of comedy; hence, comedy, in distinction from tragedy, which is symbolized by the buskin.
  • noun A knitted or woven covering for the foot, shorter than a stocking; a stocking reaching but a short distance above the ankle.
  • noun A sandal, wooden patten, or clog for the feet, worn by the friars called Recollets.
  • noun A plowshare; a movable share slipped over the sole of a plow.
  • To sew up.
  • To throw; especially, to hurl or send with swiftness and violence: as, to sock a ball.
  • To hit hard; pitch into: as, to sock one in the eye.
  • With an impersonal it, to strike a hard blow; give a drubbing: as, sock it to him!

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Prov. or Vulgar To hurl, drive, or strike violently; -- often with it as an object.
  • noun A plowshare.
  • noun The shoe worn by actors of comedy in ancient Greece and Rome, -- used as a symbol of comedy, or of the comic drama, as distinguished from tragedy, which is symbolized by the buskin.
  • noun A knit or woven covering for the foot and lower leg; a stocking with a short leg.
  • noun A warm inner sole for a shoe.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A knitted or woven covering for the foot
  • noun A shoe worn by Greco-Roman comedy actors
  • noun A violent blow, punch
  • noun A shortened version of (Internet) sock puppet
  • verb transitive To hit or strike violently
  • verb intransitive To deliver a blow

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun hosiery consisting of a cloth covering for the foot; worn inside the shoe; reaches to between the ankle and the knee
  • verb hit hard
  • noun a truncated cloth cone mounted on a mast; used (e.g., at airports) to show the direction of the wind

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English socke, from Old English socc, a kind of light shoe, from Latin soccus, possibly from Greek sunkhis, sukkhos, Phrygian shoe.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Origin unknown.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sock.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • A ploughshare. A very rare Celtic survival in the Yorkshire dialect, possibly reintroduced via Cumbria by Vikings who had previously settled in Ireland.

    March 3, 2010