paddock

plural paddocks

1. alsofigurativelyA small enclosure or field of grassland, especially one used to exercise or graze horses or other animals.

   [H]e has delineated estates of romance, from which their actual possessions are shanties and paddocks.

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

   5 more examples

   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.

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

   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.

   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

   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.

   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

   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.

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

   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.

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

2. broadlyhobbiesAn enclosure next to a racecourse where horses are paraded and mounted before a race and unsaddled after a race.

   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.

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

   1 more example

   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.

   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

3. broadlyhobbiesAn area at a racing circuit where the racing vehicles are parked and worked on before and between races.
4. broadlyslanghobbiesA field on which a game is played; a playing field.
5. AustraliaNew ZealandbroadlyA field of grassland of any size, either enclosed by fences or delimited by geographical boundaries, especially a large area for keeping cattle or sheep.
6. AustraliaNew ZealandbroadlybusinessA 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.

present singular third person paddocks · participle present paddocking · participle past paddocked · past paddocked

1. AustraliaNew Zealandtransitiveoften passive voiceTo 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.

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

   1 more example

   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.

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

2. AustraliaNew ZealandtransitiveTo 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.

   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

3. AustraliaNew ZealandalsointransitivetransitivebusinessTo excavate washdirt (“earth rich enough in metal to pay for washing”) from (a superficial deposit).
4. AustraliaNew ZealandobsoletetransitivebusinessTo store (ore, washdirt, etc.) in a paddock (noun sense 2.5).

plural paddocks · alternative padock · alternative puddock

1. AustraliaNew ZealandNorthern EnglandNorthern IrelandScotlandtransitiveA frog.

   Cold as a paddock.

   5 more examples

   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, […]

   Also the Lord said to Moses, enter thou to Pharaoh, and thou shalt say to him, The Lord saith these things, Deliver thou my people, that it make sacrifice to me; soothly [truly] if thou nilt [wilt not] deliver, lo! I shall smite all thy terms [lands] with paddocks; and the flood shall boil out paddocks; […]

   [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

   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.

   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

   The vvater-Snake, vvhom Fiſh and Paddocks fed, / VVith ſtaring Scales lies poyſon'd in his Bed: […]

   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

   Ower mony maisters—ower mony maisters, as the paddock said to the harrow, when every tooth gae her a tig.

   [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

   He put out his hand with repulsion; it lay like a cold paddock on her knee.

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

2. AustraliaNew ZealandNorthern EnglandNorthern IrelandScotlandtransitiveA toad.

   Padock calls anon: faire is foule, and foule is faire, / Houer through the fogge and filthie ayre.

   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

   2 more examples

   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.

   Where I was wont to seek the honey bee, / Working her formal rooms in waxen frame: / The grisly toadstool grown there might I see / And loathed paddocks lording on the same.

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

   [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.

   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

3. AustraliaNew ZealandNorthern EnglandNorthern IrelandScotlandderogatorytransitiveA contemptible, or malicious or nasty, person.

   [T]here was grandfaither's siller tester in the puddock’s heart of him.

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

   Synonyms: assbag, assbreath, assbucket, asschunk, asscunt, assface, assfag, assfaggot

4. AustraliaNew ZealandScotlandtransitiveA simple, usually triangular, sledge which is dragged along the ground to transport items.

plural Paddocks

1. An English surname.

   But 64-year-old Stephen C. Paddock flew low under the radar. He avoided interaction with many of the people around him, and his manner was direct and brusque.

   2017 October 6, Ann O'Neill and Bob Ortega, “The unknowable Stephen Paddock and the ultimate mystery: Why?”, in CNN