dock

Meanings

Noun

• Any of the genus Rumex of coarse weedy plants with small green flowers related to buckwheat, especially bitter dock (Rumex obtusifolius (species)), and used as potherbs and in folk medicine, especially in curing nettle rash.
• A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.
• The fleshy root of an animal's tail.
• The part of the tail which remains after the tail has been docked.
• The buttocks or anus.
• A leather case to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.
• A fixed structure attached to shore to which a vessel is secured when in port.
• A structure attached to shore for loading and unloading vessels.
• The body of water between two piers.
• The place of arrival and departure of a train in a railway station.
• A section of a hotel or restaurant.
• 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.
• A toolbar that provides the user with a way of launching applications, and switching between running applications.
• An act of docking; joining two things together.
• Part of a courtroom where the accused sits.

Verb

• To cut off a section of an animal's tail, to practise a caudectomy.
• To reduce (wages); to deduct from.
• To cut off, bar, or destroy.
• To land at a harbour.
• To join two moving items.
• To engage in the sexual practice of docking (where the tip of one participant's penis is inserted into the foreskin of the other participant).
• To drag a user interface element (such as a toolbar) to a position on screen where it snaps into place.
• To place (an electronic device) in its dock.
• To pierce with holes, as pricking pastry or dough with a fork to prevent excessive rising in the oven.

Related

Similar words

• slip
• wharf, quay

Broader meaning words

• mooring, moorage

Origin

• From Middle English dokke, from Old English docce, from Proto-Germanic *dukk- (compare Old Danish dokke ("water-dock"), West Flemish dokke, dokkebladeren), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰew- ("dark") (compare Latvian duga ("scum, slime on water")).
• From Middle English dok, from Old English *docce, *docca (as in fingirdoccana), from Proto-West Germanic *dokkā, from Proto-Germanic *dukkǭ (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") (compare Lithuanian dvė̃kti ("to breathe, wheeze"), dvãkas, Albanian dak ("big ram"), Sanskrit धुक्षति ("to blow")).
• From Middle English dokken, from the noun (see above).
• From early modern English "area of mud in which a ship can rest at low tide, dock", borrowed from Dutch dok or Middle Low German docke, both from Middle Dutch docke, of uncertain origin. The original sense may have been "the furrow a grounded vessel makes in a mud bank" . Compare modern Dutch dok, modern German Low German Dock, West Frisian dok, German Dock, Danish dok, Swedish docka.
• Some sources link this word to an unattested Middle Dutch *docke, which is a ghost word, only being inferred from Mediaeval Latin documents in the form of ducta, doctus, doccia. However, if this theory is correct, then it would relate the word to Italian doccia, making dock a doublet of douche, and duct.
• An alternative theory ties Middle Dutch docke to a North Germanic/Scandinavian source, notably Old Norse dǫkk, related to Norwegian dokk, Old Icelandic dökk, dökð, Swedish dank. If so, this would make dock a dank.
• Originally criminal slang; from or akin to Dutch (West Flemish) dok or docke.