paddock

Meanings

Noun

• A small enclosure or field of grassland, especially for horses.
• A field of grassland of any size, especially for keeping sheep or cattle.
• An area where horses are paraded and mounted before a race and unsaddled after a race.
• Land, fenced or otherwise delimited, which is most often part of a sheep or cattle property.
• An area at circuit where the racing vehicles are parked and worked on before and between races.
• The playing field.
• A frog or toad. Cold as a paddock.

Verb

• To provide with a paddock.
• To keep in, or place in, a paddock.

Origin

• Alteration of Middle English parrok, parrock, from Old English pearroc, pearruc, from Proto-West Germanic *parruk, from Proto-Germanic *parrukaz.
• park. Cognate with Dutch perk ("flowerbed, garden, pen"), German Pferch ("sheepfold, sheep-pen"), Danish park ("pond"). Perhaps related to spar and spear.
• From Middle English paddok, equivalent to pad + -ock.