''paddock'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

---

Primary

⁀➴

''paddock'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260227140228-00-⌔

paddock - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

paddock (plural paddocks)

• (also figuratively) A small enclosure or field of grassland, especially one used to exercise or graze horses or other animals.
  • ✤ Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock.¹
  • ✤ A jargonell pear tree at one end of the cottage, a rivulet, and flower-plot of a rood in extent, in front, and a kitchen-garden behind; a paddock for a cow, and a small field, cultivated with several crops of grain rather for the benefit of the cottager than for sale, announced the warm and cordial comforts which Old England, even at her most northern extremity, extends to her meanest inhabitants.²
  • ✤ [H]e has delineated estates of romance, from which their actual possessions are shanties and paddocks.³
  • ✤ They were not members of a country where literature is confined to its little paddock, without influence on the larger field (part lawn, part marsh) of the social world: they were readers in sympathetic action with thinkers and literary artists.⁴
  • ✤ There was only the extent of a wide paddock and a lawn between the hall-door and that grand old gateway, and the house, though substantial and capacious, hardly pretended to the dignity of a mansion.⁵
  • ✤ The Queen of Hearts was floodlit behind the petrol pumps: a Tudor barn converted, a vestige of a farmyard left in the arrangement of the restaurant and bars: a swimming pool where the paddock had been.⁶
  • ✤ [T]he two of them [Benjamin the donkey and Boxer the cart-horse] usually spent their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking.⁷
• (by extension)
  • (horse racing) An enclosure next to a racecourse where horses are paraded and mounted before a race and unsaddled after a race.
    • ✤ We left the carriage, bought programmes, and walked across the infield and then across the smooth thick turf of the course to the paddock. […] The paddock was fairly well filled with people and they were walking the horses around in a ring under the trees behind the grand stand.⁸
    • ✤ You remind me of a two-year-old, Dinny—one of those whipcordy chestnuts that kick up their heels in the paddock, get left at the post, and come in first after all.⁹
  • (motor racing) An area at a racing circuit where the racing vehicles are parked and worked on before and between races.
  • (sports, slang) A field on which a game is played; a playing field.
  • (Australia, New Zealand) A field of grassland of any size, either enclosed by fences or delimited by geographical boundaries, especially a large area for keeping cattle or sheep.
  • (chiefly Australia, New Zealand, mining) A place in a superficial deposit where ore or washdirt (“earth rich enough in metal to pay for washing”) is excavated; also, a place for storing ore, washdirt, etc.

Verb

paddock (third-person singular simple present paddocks, present participle paddocking, simple past and past participle paddocked) (transitive, chiefly Australia, New Zealand)

• (often passive voice) To place or keep (cattle, horses, sheep, or other animals) within a paddock (noun sense 1 or 2.4); hence, to provide (such animals) with pasture.
  • ✤ In the district of which I am speaking the sheep are all “paddocked,” —that is to say, kept in by fences—so that shepherding is unnecessary.¹⁰
  • ✤ Now, if you went down into the forest where the spring gum-tips gleam gold and ruby in whatever sunshine, Heaven thinks fit to apportion at this season to residents of the Dandenongs (who surely were all born Aquarians) what sign of the Zodiac would you expect to meet? […] Not Taurus the Bull, who is paddocked, or Cancer the Crab, who lives underground in these regions.¹¹
• To enclose or fence in (land) to form a paddock.
  • ✤ When a run is “paddocked,” shepherds are not required;—but boundary-riders are employed, each of whom is supplied with two horses, and these men are responsible not only for the sheep but for the fences.¹²
• (mining)
  • (also intransitive) To excavate washdirt (“earth rich enough in metal to pay for washing”) from (a superficial deposit).
  • (obsolete) To store (ore, washdirt, etc.) in a paddock (noun sense 2.5).

Noun

paddock (plural paddocks)

• (chiefly Northern England, Northern Ireland, Scotland)
  • A frog.
    • ✤ Cold as a paddock.
    • ✤ Also the Lord seide to Moises, Entre thou to Farao, and thou schalt seie to hym, The Lord seith these thingis, Delyuere thou my puple, that it make sacrifice to me; sotheli if thou nylt delyuere, lo! Y schal smyte alle thi termys with paddoks; and the flood schal buyle out paddokis, […]¹³
    • ✤ It is apparent that there be three kinds of Frogs of the earth, the firſt is the little greene Frog: the ſecond is this Padocke, hauing a crooke back, called in Latine Rubeta Gibboſa, and the third is the Toade, commonly called Rubotax, Bufo. […] As ſoone as theſe Paddocks come once into the ayre, out of their cloſe places of generation and habitation, they ſvvell and ſo die.¹⁴
    • ✤ The vvater-Snake, vvhom Fiſh and Paddocks fed,/VVith ſtaring Scales lies poyſon’d in his Bed: […]¹⁵
    • ✤ Ower mony maisters—ower mony maisters, as the paddock said to the harrow, when every tooth gae her a tig.¹⁶
    • ✤ He put out his hand with repulsion; it lay like a cold paddock on her knee.¹⁷
  • A toad.
    • ✤ Where I was wont to ſeeke the honey Bee,/Working her formall rowmes in Wexen frame:/The grieſlie Todeſtoole growne there mought I ſe/And loathed Paddocks lording on the ſame.¹⁸
    • ✤ * Padock * calls anon: faire is foule, and foule is faire,/Houer through the fogge and filthie ayre.¹⁹
    • ✤ [F]rom the hall wherein the mourners died/A grey wolf glared, and o’er his head the bat/Hung, and the paddock on the hearth-stone sat.²⁰
  • (derogatory) A contemptible, or malicious or nasty, person.
    • ✤ Synonyms: see Thesaurus: jerk
    • ✤ [T]here was grandfaither’s siller tester in the puddock ’s heart of him.²¹
• (Scotland) A simple, usually triangular, sledge which is dragged along the ground to transport items.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, Ireland, Scotland) IPA: /ˈpædək/
• (General American, Canada) IPA: /ˈpædək/, [ˈpæɾək]
  • Audio (Texas): 🔊
• (Australian) IPA: /ˈpædək/, [ˈpædɨ̞k], [ˈpæɾɨ̞k]
  • Audio (Queensland): 🔊
• Rhymes: -ædək
• Hyphenation: pad‧dock

Etymology 1

The noun is almost certainly a variant of dialectal British parrock (“enclosure; park; croft, small field, paddock”),²² from Middle English parrok, parrock (“enclosed pasture, paddock; coop; feeding stall; cabin, hut”) [and other forms],²³ from Old English pearroc, pearruc (“fence used to enclose a space; area enclosed by such a fence, enclosure”), from Proto-West Germanic ﹡parruk (“enclosure; pen for animals”), from Proto-Germanic ﹡parrukaz (“fence; enclosure”); further etymology uncertain, perhaps related to Proto-Germanic ﹡barō (“bar, beam; barrier”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European ﹡bʰerH- (“to pierce; to strike”). Equivalent to park + -ock. Doublet of park.

The verb is derived from the noun.²⁴

Etymology 2

From Middle English paddok, paddoke (“frog; toad”) [and other forms],²⁵ from pad, pade (“frog; toad”)²⁶ + -ok (diminutive suffix).²⁷ Pad, pade is derived from Old English ﹡pada, ﹡padda, padde, from Proto-West Germanic ﹡paddā, from Proto-Germanic ﹡paddǭ (“toad”); further etymology uncertain, possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ﹡bʰew- (“to swell”). The English word is analysable as pad (“(Britain, dialectal) frog; toad”) +‎ -ock (suffix forming nouns, originally with diminutive senses).²⁸

Sense 2 (“sledge”) is probably from the supposed resemblance of the object to a frog or toad.

Printed 2026-06-28.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter VII, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume III, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, page 126: ↩

2. 1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter V, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, page 92: ↩

3. 1844, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Essay VI. Nature.”, in Essays: Second Series, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, page 190: ↩

4. 1880, George Meredith, chapter II, in The Tragic Comedians. A Study in a Well-known Story. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1881, →OCLC, page 25: ↩

5. [1885], [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “After the Inquest”, in Wyllard’s Weird. […], volume I, London: John and Robert Maxwell […], →OCLC, page 69: ↩

6. 1938, Graham Greene, chapter 1, in Brighton Rock, London: William Heinemann & The Bodley Head, published 1970, →ISBN, part 5, page 162: ↩

7. 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter I, in Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished as Animal Farm (eBook no. 0100011h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, March 2008: ↩

8. 1929 May–October, Ernest Hemingway, chapter 20, in A Farewell to Arms, 1st British edition, London: Jonathan Cape […], published 1929, →OCLC, book II, page 138: ↩

9. 1931 November, John Galsworthy, chapter XXIV, in Maid in Waiting, 1st Canadian edition, Toronto, Ont.: The Ryerson Press, published 1931, →OCLC, page 211: ↩

10. 1873, Anthony Trollope, “[South Australia.] Wool.”, in Australia and New Zealand. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 214: ↩

11. 1947 November 14, Mountain District Free Press and Frentree Gully News, Tecoma, Vic., page 8, column 2: ↩

12. 1873, Anthony Trollope, “[New South Wales.] Country Life in the Bush.”, in Australia and New Zealand. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 302: ↩

13. [c. 1382–1395, John Wycliffe [et al.], edited by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, The Holy Bible, […], volume I (in Middle English), Oxford: At the University Press, published 1850, →OCLC, Exodus VIII:1–3, page 208, column 2: ↩

14. 1608, Edward Topsell, “Of the Paddcke${}^{[sic]}$ or Crooked Backe Frogge”, in The Historie of Serpents. Or, The Second Booke of Liuing Creatures: […], London: […] William Jaggard, →OCLC, pages 186–187: ↩

15. 1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 120, lines 812–813: ↩

16. [1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter[XIV], in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC, pages 307–308: ↩

17. 1938, Graham Greene, chapter 3, in Brighton Rock, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 111: ↩

18. 1579, Immeritô [pseudonym; Edmund Spenser], “December. Ægloga Duodecima.”, in The Shepheardes Calender: […], London: […] Hugh Singleton, […], →OCLC, folio 49, verso: ↩

19. c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 131, column 1: ↩

20. 1870, William Morris, “October: The Man Who Never Laughed Again”, in The Earthly Paradise: A Poem, part III, London: F[rederick] S[tartridge] Ellis, […], →OCLC, page 240: ↩

21. 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Black Andie’s Tale of Tod Lapraik”, in Catriona, London; Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, →OCLC, page 182: ↩

22. “paddock, n.${}^2$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “paddock, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

23. “par(r)ok, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

24. “paddock, v.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “paddock, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022. ↩

25. “paddok(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

26. “pad(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

27. “-ok, suf.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007. ↩

28. “paddock, n.${}^1$”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2022. ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •

---