pad|dock

pad|dock¹ «PAD uhk», noun, verb.

–n.

1. a small, enclosed field near a stable or house, used for exercising animals or as a pasture, especially for horses: »

Ten cows were grazed in each break and moved into a new paddock every morning (John Hancock).

2. a pen at a race track, where horses are saddled before a race.

3. (in Australia and New Zealand) any field or piece of tillable or grass-covered land enclosed by a fence, often used as a sheep an cattle pasture.

–v.t.

1. to put or keep in or as if in a paddock: »

Shakespeare himself would have been commonplace had he been paddocked in a thinly-shaven vocabulary (James Russell Lowell).

2. (in Australia) to fence in (land).

╂[variant of parrock, Old English pearroc enclosed space; fence. Compare etym. under park. (Cf. ↑park)]

pad|dock² «PAD uhk», noun. Dialect.

1. a frog.

2. a toad.

╂[Middle English paddoke < pade toad, frog + -ok diminutive suffix]