Other forms: docks, docking, docked
A dock is an enclosed area of water where ships are loaded. Dry dock, the ship docked, unload at the dock.
A wet dock keeps the water level constant behind gates and a dry dock is drained so the hull can be worked on. In court, the dock is where the accused stands. To dock wages is to cut them, and to dock a tail is to cut it — both a different word. Note that the plant dock is a fourth.
1noundockAn enclosed area of water where ships are loaded.
“Crowds waited at the dock as the ship came in from its long voyage.”
2verbcutTo cut an amount from wages.
“If you're late again, they'll dock your pay.”
dock is a berth, or a cutting.
Middle English dokke comes from a Middle Dutch word for a ship's berth. The plant, the tail and the cut in pay are separate words.
Middle English
dokke
English, today
dock
Built from
From Middle English dokke. From Middle English dokke, from Old English docce, from Proto-West Germanic dokkā, from Proto-Germanic dukkǭ (compare gmq-oda dokke (“water-dock”), vls dokke, dokkebladeren (“coltsfoot, butterbur”)), from Proto-Indo-European dʰew- (“dark”) (compare Latvian duga (“scum, slime on water”)).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA