dock [OE] In a criminal courtroom the dock is the official term for the enclosure where a defendant stands or sits. It was not always so orderly: originally a dock was crammed full of the thieves and petty criminals whose trial was scheduled for the day. The word may well be identical with Flemish dok ‘chicken coop, rabbit hutch’, and first appears in the late 16th century. The Late Middle English dock meaning ‘area of water for the loading, unloading, or repair of ships’ has a parallel in Dutch dok and early German forms, but its earlier history is lost. The plant dock, effective against nettle stings, is the oldest of the group, being recorded in Old English. The verb to dock [LME] is another Germanic word with a base meaning of ‘to cut’, particularly trimming hair whether human or animal, but even in Late Middle English it already had the sense of ‘curtail, limit’ as in to dock someone’s pay.