dock
/dɒk/
"dock" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“dock” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,218 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #7,218
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any of the genus Rumex of coarse weedy plants with small green flowers related to buckwheat, especially bitter dock (Rumex obtusifolius), and used as potherbs and in folk medicine, especially in cu...
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | dock |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /dɒk/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #7,218 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “dock” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for dock is 4 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɒk/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,218 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for dock, with forms such as "dcok", "ddock", and "docck". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "dog", "don", "dot", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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”) (c… The correct English form is dock, spelled D-O-C-K.
Definition
- 1Any of the genus Rumex of coarse weedy plants with small green flowers related to buckwheat, especially bitter dock (Rumex obtusifolius), and used as potherbs and in folk medicine, especially in curing nettle rash.
- 2A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.
Etymology
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”)).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: dcok,ddock,docck,dockk,dokc,odck
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of dock - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “dock”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-O-C-K - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɒk/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “dog” - see the side-by-side comparison. dock vs dog
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.