dock
/dɔk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.99 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
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.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "And vnder neath him his courageous ſteed, / The fierce Spumador trode them downe like docks […]"
- "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"
- "And on a Cuſhion ſtuffed with Flocks, / She clapt her dainty pair of Docks."
- "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."
- "Her wages were docked by ten dollars."
- "The team have been docked six points at Paris 2024 and Priestman received a one-year football ban from world governing body Fifa."
Etymology
From Middle English dokke, from Old English docce, from Proto-West Germanic *dokkā, from Proto-Germanic *dukkǭ (compare Old Danish dokke (“water-dock”), West Flemish dokke, dokkebladeren (“coltsfoot, butterbur”)), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰew- (“dark”) (compare Latvian duga (“scum, slime on water”)).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: dokke, docce, *dokkā, *dukkǭ, *dʰew-, dok
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /dɔk/
- British English: /dɒk/
Usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Obsolete
- Transitive verb
- Informal
- American usage
- British usage
- Intransitive verb