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PlainSpell

dock

/dɑk/noun, verb

dock is spelled D-O-C-K: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 9.8 times per million words in written English, the 7,224th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Dock, the name). As a noun, dock means “Any of the genus Rumex of coarse weedy plants with small green flowers related to buckwheat, especially bitter dock (Rumex obtusifolius), and used as…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of dock is docks.

How many letters and syllables are in dock?

Letters4: D-O-C-K
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing9.8 times per million words; the 7,224th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Rhymes with

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is dock?

Dock appears 9.8 times per million words in written English, the 7,224th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Dock, the name.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce dock?

  • UK /dɒk/
  • British /dɔk/
  • US /dɑk/

Dock has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-dock.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with dock

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

doc vs dock0 B

Sounds like: doc (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with dock?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as dock from its last stressed vowel (/ɑk/):

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of dock

  • docks plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • docking participle, present
  • docked participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does dock mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    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 curing nettle rash.

  2. 2

    A burdock plant, or the leaves of that plant.

  3. 3

    The fleshy root of an animal's tail; specifically after clipping or cutting.

  4. 4

    obsoleteThe buttocks or anus.

  5. 5

    A leather case used to cover the clipped or cut tail of a horse.

  6. 6

    USA fixed structure attached to shore to which a vessel is secured when in port; usually for loading and unloading.

  7. 7

    UKThe body of water next to and around a pier.

  8. 8

    The area of arrival and departure of a train in a railway station.

  9. 9

    A section of a hotel or restaurant.

    coffee dock

  10. 10

    A device designed as a base for holding a connected portable appliance for providing the necessary electrical charge for its autonomy, or as a hardware extension for additional capabilities.

  11. 11

    A toolbar that provides the user with a way of launching applications by their icons, and switching between running applications.

  12. 12

    An act or instance of docking; joining two things together.

  13. 13

    Ellipsis of scene-dock.

  14. 14

    Part of a courtroom where the accused sits.

verb

  1. 1

    To clip or cut off a section of an animal's tail; to practise a caudectomy.

  2. 2

    To reduce (wages); to deduct from (someone).

    Her wages were docked by ten dollars.

  3. 3

    informalTo reduce the wages of (a person).

    They docked me ten dollars for breaking the vase.

  4. 4

    To cut off, bar, or destroy.

    to dock an entail

  5. 5

    To pierce holes, as pricking dough with a fork, to prevent excessive rising in the oven.

    Pricking holes in the rolled-out pie dough allows the steam to escape while it's baking. Without this, the steam would puff up in bubbles and pockets throughout the crust, which would make some parts of the crust cook too quickly and also r

  6. 6

    To land at a harbour.

    On 28 February, for example, a US Navy ship docked in Nampo, the port for Pyongyang, with equipment for joint searches for remains of US soldiers missing from the 1950-1953 Korean War. China may look askance at the US and North Korean milit

  7. 7

    To join two moving items.

    to dock spacecraft

  8. 8

    To move a spaceship into its dock/berth under its own power.

  9. 9

    slangIn male homosexual sex, to engage in docking, the inserting of the tip of one participant's penis into the foreskin of the other participant.

  10. 10

    To drag a user interface element (such as a toolbar) to a position on screen where it snaps into place.

  11. 11

    To place (an electronic device) in its dock.

    I docked the laptop and allowed it to recharge for an hour.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you abbreviate dock?

Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of dock: LHD, LPD.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Dock in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpatience, parelle (any plant in genus Rumex), bardane (burdock), darse (fixed structure to which a vessel is secured), socle (device designed as a base for holding a…), banc des accusés (part of a courtroom where the accused sits)
GermanAmpfer (any plant in genus Rumex), Klette (burdock), Steg, Bootssteg, Anlegesteg (fixed structure to which a vessel is secured), kupieren (to cut off a section of an animal's tail)
Portugueseazeda, labaça (any plant in genus Rumex), doca (fixed structure to which a vessel is secured), banco dos réus (part of a courtroom where the accused sits), derrabar (to cut off a section of an animal's tail), atracar (to land at a harbour)
Spanishacedera, romaza, vinagrera (any plant in genus Rumex), maslo, mástel (disused), penca (fleshy root of an animal's tail)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does dock come from?

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”)).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after dock