docking

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
dock1

▶noun

• 1 an enclosed area of water in a port for the loading, unloading, and repair of ships.

  ■ N. Amer. a jetty or pier where a ship may moor.

• 2 (also loading dock) a platform for loading trucks or goods trains.

▶verb

• 1 (with reference to a ship) come or bring into a dock.

• 2 (of a spacecraft) join with a space station or another spacecraft in space.

• 3 attach (a piece of equipment) to another.

– phrases
in dock Brit. informal out of action; indisposed.

– origin ME: from MDu., Mid. Low Ger. docke, of unknown origin.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
dock2

▶noun the enclosure in a criminal court where a defendant stands or sits.

– origin C16: prob. orig. sl. and rel. to Flemish dok ‘chicken coop, rabbit hutch’.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
dock3

▶noun a coarse weed of temperate regions, with inconspicuous greenish or reddish flowers, and leaves that are used to relieve nettle stings. [Genus Rumex.]

– origin OE docce, of Gmc origin.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
dock4

▶verb

• 1 deduct (money or a point in a game).

• 2 cut short (an animal's tail).

▶noun the solid bony or fleshy part of an animal's tail.

■ the stump left after a tail has been docked.

– origin ME (orig. in sense ‘solid part of an animal's tail’): perh. rel. to Frisian dok ‘bunch, ball (of string)’ and Ger. Docke ‘doll’.