dock

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”)).

A horse with a fully docked (etymology 2 sense 1) tail A dog with a partially docked (etymology 2 sense 1) tail From Middle English dok (“trimmed hair, dock”), from Old English docce, docca (as in fingerdocce (“finger muscles”)), from Proto-West Germanic dokkā, from Proto-Germanic dukkǭ, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeu-k- (“to spin, shake”). Compare Icelandic dokkur (“stumpy tail”), Low German Dokke (“bundle of straw”), West Frisian dok (“bunch, ball (twine)”), Albanian dak (“big ram”), Lithuanian dvė̃kti (“to breathe, wheeze”), dvãkas (“breath”), Sanskrit धुक्षति (dhukṣati, “to blow”). The verb is from Middle English dokken (“to cut short, dock, curtail”), derived from the noun.

A dock (etymology 3 sense 1, etymology 3 sense 2) for cruise ships A laptop docking (etymology 3 sense 5) station A GUI dock (etymology 3 sense 6) on Linux From Early Modern English meaning "area of mud in which a ship can rest at low tide, dock", borrowed from either Dutch dok (“dock, wharf”) or Middle Low German docke (“dock, wharf”), both from Middle Dutch docke (“port, harbour”), of uncertain origin. The original sense may have been "the furrow a grounded vessel makes in a mud bank". Compare Danish dok, Dutch dok, West Frisian dok, German Dock, Low German Dock, Swedish docka. Some sources link this word to an unattested Middle Dutch *docke (“watercourse, trench, canal”), which is a ghost word, only being inferred from Mediaeval Latin documents in the form of ducta, doctus, doccia (“conduit, canal”). However, if this theory is correct, then it would relate the word to Italian doccia (“drainpipe”), making dock a doublet of douche and duct. An alternative theory ties Middle Dutch docke to a North Germanic or Scandinavian source, notably Old Norse dǫkk, dökð (“depression in the landscape, pit, pool, trench”); compare Icelandic dökk, Norwegian dokk (“hollow, low ground”), Swedish dank (“marshy ground”). If so, this would make dock a doublet of dank.

Originally criminal slang; from or akin to obsolete Dutch (West Flemish) dok (“cage, hutch”) or docke (“cage”), possibly from Middle Dutch docke (“block, wooden object”), related to Middle Low German docke (“tenon, banister rod, bench cheek, side panel of a pew”), of uncertain origin.