docks

Noun (1)

dock (countable and uncountable, plural docks)

1. 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 […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 352
2. A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.

Noun (2)

dock (plural docks)

1. 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 Buttock1681, Nehemiah Grew, Musæum Regalis Societatis. Or A Catalogue & Description of the Natural and Artificial Rarities Belonging to the Royal Society and Preserved at Gresham Colledge. […], London: […]...
2. (obsolete) The buttocks or anus.
   • And on a Cuſhion ſtuffed with Flocks, / She clapt her dainty pair of Docks.1665, Charles Cotton, Scarronnides
3. A leather case used to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.

Noun (3)

dock (plural docks)

1. (US) A fixed structure attached to shore to which a vessel is secured when in port; usually for loading and unloading.
   • With just the turn of a shoulder she indicated the water front, where, at the end of the dock on which they stood, lay the good ship, Mount Vernon, river packet, the black smoke already pouring from her stacks.1910, Emerson Hough, “A Lady in Company”, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   dockyard, pier, quay, wharf

See all 26 meanings of dock