dock

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   maneuver into a dock

   dock the ships

2. 2
   verb

   come into dock

   the ship docked

3. 3
   noun

   Any of the genus Rumex of coarse weedy plants with small green flowers related to buckwheat, especially bitter dock (Rumex obtusifolius), and used as potherbs and in folk medicine, especially in curing nettle rash.

   And vnder neath him his courageous ſteed, / The fierce Spumador trode them downe like docks […]

4. 4
   noun

   The fleshy root of an animal's tail; specifically after clipping or cutting.

   The Dock is about 1 inch thick, and two inches broad, like an Apothecaries Spatule. Of what length the whole, is uncertain, this being only part of it, though it looks as if cut off near the Buttock

5. 5
   noun

   The buttocks or anus.

   And on a Cuſhion ſtuffed with Flocks, / She clapt her dainty pair of Docks.

6. 6
   verb

   To clip or cut off a section of an animal's tail; to practise a caudectomy.

   The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track.[…]Their example was followed by others at a time when the master of Mohair was superintending in person the docking of some two-year-olds, and equally invisible.

7. 7
   verb

   To reduce (wages); to deduct from (someone).

   Her wages were docked by ten dollars.

8. 8
   verb

   To reduce the wages of (a person).

   They docked me ten dollars for breaking the vase.

Etymology

A dock (etymology 3, noun sense 1, etymology 3, noun sense 2) for cruise ships A laptop docking (etymology 3, noun sense 5) station A GUI dock (etymology 3, noun sense 6) on Linux From Early Modern English meaning "area of mud in which a ship can rest at low tide, dock", borrowed from either Dutch dok (“dock, wharf”) or Middle Low German docke (“dock, wharf”), both from Middle Dutch docke (“port, harbour”), of uncertain origin. The original sense may have been "the furrow a grounded vessel makes in a mud bank". Compare Danish dok, Dutch dok, West Frisian dok, German Dock, Low German Dock, Swed…