- 1[intransitive, transitive] dock (something) if a ship docks or you dock a ship, it sails into a harbour and stays there The ferry is expected to dock at 6. See related entries: Coastlines and the sea, Travelling by boat or ship
- 2[intransitive, transitive] dock (something) if two spacecraft dock, or are docked, they are joined together in space Next year, a technology module will be docked on the space station. Wordfinderspaceastronaut, countdown, dock, launch, mission, orbit, rocket, satellite, space, weightless See related entries: Space travel
- 3[transitive] to take away part of somebody’s wages, etc. dock something If you're late, your wages will be docked. dock something from/off something They've docked 15% off my pay for this week.
- 4 [transitive] dock something (computing) to connect a computer to a docking station I docked my portable and started work. opposite undock
- 5[transitive] dock something to cut an animal’s tail short The horse’s tail had been docked. Word Originverb senses 1 to 2 late Middle English: from Middle Dutch, Middle Low German docke, of unknown origin. verb senses 3 to 4 late Middle English: perhaps related to Frisian dok ‘bunch, ball (of string etc.)’ and German Docke ‘doll’. The original noun sense was ‘the solid part of an animal's tail’, whence the verb sense ‘cut short an animal's tail’, later generalized to ‘reduce, deduct’.
dock
verbBrE BrE//dɒk//; NAmE NAmE//dɑːk//
Verb Forms present simple I / you / we / they dock BrE BrE//dɒk//; NAmE NAmE//dɑːk//
he / she / it docks BrE BrE//dɒks//; NAmE NAmE//dɑːks//
past simple docked BrE BrE//dɒkt//; NAmE NAmE//dɑːkt//
past participle docked BrE BrE//dɒkt//; NAmE NAmE//dɑːkt//
-ing form docking BrE BrE//ˈdɒkɪŋ//; NAmE NAmE//ˈdɑːkɪŋ//
Coastlines and the sea, Space travel, Travelling by boat or shipCheck pronunciation: dock
