Definitions

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

  • noun A platform extending from a shore over water and supported by piles or pillars, used to secure, protect, and provide access to a boat or ship.
  • noun An area along a commercial waterfront having docks or piers.
  • noun The area of water between two piers or alongside a pier that receives a vessel for loading, unloading, or repairs.
  • noun A floating platform attached to a mooring and used as a rest or play area when swimming.
  • noun A platform or door at which trucks or trains load or unload cargo.
  • intransitive verb To maneuver (a vessel or vehicle) into or next to a dock.
  • intransitive verb To couple (two or more spacecraft, for example) in space.
  • intransitive verb To move or come into or next to a dock.
  • noun A demarcated or enclosed space where the defendant stands or sits in a court of law.
  • idiom (in the dock) On trial or under intense scrutiny.
  • noun The solid or fleshy part of an animal's tail.
  • noun The tail of an animal after it has been bobbed or clipped.
  • transitive verb To clip short or cut off (an animal's tail, for example).
  • transitive verb To deprive of a benefit or a part of one's wages, especially as a punishment.
  • transitive verb To withhold or deduct a part from (one's salary or wages).

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The tail of a beast cut short or clipped; the stump of a tail; the solid part of a tail.
  • noun The buttocks; the rump.
  • noun The fleshy part of a boar's chine, between the middle and the rump.
  • noun A case of leather to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.
  • noun A piece of leather forming part of a crupper.
  • noun The crupper of a saddle.
  • noun The stern of a ship.
  • noun 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.
  • In biscuit- (cracker-) making, to prick holes in (each biscuit) before it is put in the oven, to provide for the escape of moisture.
  • noun The place where a criminal stands in court.
  • To cut off, as the end of a thing; cut short; clip; curtail: as, to dock the tail of a horse.
  • Hence To deduct a part from; shorten; curtail; diminish: as, to dock one's wages.
  • Nautical, to clue up (a corner of a sail) when it hinders the helmsman from seeing: usually with up.
  • To cut off, rescind, or destroy; bar: as, to dock an entail.
  • noun 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.
  • noun 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.
  • To bring or draw into or place in a dock.
  • noun 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.
  • noun 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.
  • noun 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.

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

  • noun 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.
  • noun The slip or water way extending between two piers or projecting wharves, for the reception of ships; -- sometimes including the piers themselves.
  • noun The place in court where a criminal or accused person stands.
  • noun a kind of floating dock which is kept level by pumping water out of, or letting it into, the compartments of side chambers.
  • noun a dock from which the water may be shut or pumped out, especially, one in the form of a chamber having walls and floor, often of masonry and communicating with deep water, but having appliances for excluding it; -- used in constructing or repairing ships. The name includes structures used for the examination, repairing, or building of vessels, as graving docks, floating docks, hydraulic docks, etc.
  • noun a dock which is made to become buoyant, and, by floating, to lift a vessel out of water.
  • noun a dock for holding a ship for graving or cleaning the bottom, etc.
  • noun a dock in which a vessel is raised clear of the water by hydraulic presses.
  • noun a dock connected with which are naval stores, materials, and all conveniences for the construction and repair of ships.
  • noun a form of floating dock made in separate sections or caissons.
  • noun a dock having a sloping floor that extends from deep water to above high-water mark, and upon which is a railway on which runs a cradle carrying the ship.
  • noun a dock where the water is shut in, and kept at a given level, to facilitate the loading and unloading of ships; -- also sometimes used as a place of safety; a basin.

Etymologies

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

[Early Modern English dok, area of mud in which a ship can rest at low tide, dock; akin to Middle Dutch docke, area of water between two piers or alongside a pier, of unknown origin.]

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

[Obsolete Flemish docke, cage.]

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

[Middle English, from Old English docce.]

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

[Middle English dok.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English dokke, from Old English docce, from Proto-Germanic *dukk-- (compare Old Danish dokke ‘water-dock’, West Flemish dokke, dokkebladeren ("coltsfoot, butterbur")), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeu- ‘dark’ (compare Latvian duga ‘scum, slime on water’).

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English dock ‘mud channel’, from Middle Dutch docke ‘channel’ (modern dok ‘lock (canal)’), from Old Italian doccia ‘conduit, canal’ or Medieval Latin ducta, ductus ‘id.’. More at douche and duct.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Originally criminal slang; from or akin to Dutch (Flemish) dok 'cage, hutch'.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English dok, from Old English -docca (as in fingirdoccana (genitive pl.) ‘finger muscles’), from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn (compare West Frisian dok ‘bunch, ball (twine)’, Low German Dokke ‘bundle of straw’, Icelandic dokkur ‘stumpy tail’), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeu-k- ‘to spin, shake’ (cf. Lithuanian dvė̃kti ‘to breathe, wheeze’, dvãkas ‘breath’, Albanian dak ‘big ram’, Sanskrit dhukśati ‘to blow’).

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