dok

Meaning

dock

Concepts

dock

docks

dry dock

drydock

wharf

embarkation point

landing place

Gender

Neuter

Pronounced as (IPA)

/dɔk/

Etymology

From Middle Dutch docke (“port, harbour, roadstead”), of uncertain origin. The original sense may have been "the furrow a grounded vessel makes in a mud bank". Compare Middle Low German docke (“dock”), borrowed from the Middle Dutch.
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”).
An alternative theory ties Middle Dutch docke to a North Germanic/Scandinavian source, notably Old Norse dǫkk (“depression in the landscape, pit, pool, trench”), from Proto-Germanic *dankwaz (“dark”). If so, related to Norwegian dokk (“hollow, low ground”), Old Icelandic dökk, also dökð (“pit, pool”), Swedish dank (“marshy ground”).