Other forms: sockets
A socket is the fitting in the wall where electricity comes out. A wall socket, plug it into the socket, a double socket.
British sockets carry a switch and a fuse in the plug, which is unusual and is why the design is so bulky. The American word is outlet, and the shape differs in most countries. A socket is also any hollow that something fits into: an eye socket, a hip socket, a socket set for spanners. Note socket wrench; and that a bone dislocated is one out of its socket.
1nounsocketThe fitting in the wall where electricity comes out.
“Plug the lamp into the socket by the bed.”
2nounhollowA hollow that something fits into.
“He fell badly and his shoulder came out of its socket.”
socket is a hollow fitting.
Also accepted in games: outlet, power point
Anglo-Norman soket meant a small spearhead, a diminutive of soc, a ploughshare, from a Celtic word meaning a pig's snout. A ploughshare looked like a snout and the fitting looked like a socket.
Proto-Indo-European
*suH-
Proto-Celtic
*sukkos
Vulgar Latin
*soccus
Old French
soc — plowshare
Anglo-Norman
soket — spearhead
Middle English
socket
English, today
socket
From Middle English socket, soket, from Anglo-Norman soket (“spearhead”), diminutive of Old French soc (“plowshare”), from Vulgar Latin soccus, a word borrowed from cel-gau -, from Proto-Celtic sukkos (compare modern Welsh swch (“plowshare”)), literally "pig's snout", from Proto-Indo-European suH-.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA