dock
noun · verb
Simple meaning
The solid bony part of the tail of an animal as distinguished from the hair.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dahkIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdɑk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The solid bony part of the tail of an animal as distinguished from the hair
The fleshy root of an animal's tail; specifically after clipping or cutting.
Any of certain coarse weedy plants with long taproots, sometimes used as table greens or in folk medicine
A leather case used to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.
A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.
The area of arrival and departure of a train in a railway station.
verb
Remove or shorten the tail of an animal
transitive
To clip or cut off a section of an animal's tail; to practise a caudectomy.
transitive
To reduce (wages); to deduct from (someone).
Deduct from someone's wages
transitive
To cut off, bar, or destroy.
intransitive
To land at a harbour.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The solid bony part of the tail of an animal as distinguished from the hair
Used this way, dock is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use dock
- “The ship arrived at the dock more than a day late.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The act of securing an arriving vessel with ropes.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Landing in a harbor next to a pier where ships are loaded and unloaded or repaired.
A fee charged for a vessel to use a dock.
A laborer who loads and unloads vessels in a port.
A laborer who loads and unloads vessels in a port.
Dry dock that can be submerged under a vessel and then raised.
A large dock from which water can be pumped out.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: remove or shorten the tail of an animal
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.