English

Alternative forms

• padock (obsolete)

Noun

paddock ‎(plural paddocks)

1. (archaic or dialectal) A frog or toad.
   • Wycliffe

     Soothly if thou wilt not deliver, lo! I shall smite all thy terms with paddocks. (Exodus 8:2)

   • Spenser

     The grisly toadstool grown there might I see, / And loathed paddocks lording on the same.

   • Shakespeare

     Paddock calls anon. (Macbeth 1.1.10)

Derived terms

• paddock pipe
• paddock stone
• paddock stool

Etymology 2

Alteration of Middle English parrok, parrock ‎(“enclosure, fence, paddock”), from Old English pearroc, pearruc ‎(“enclosure, fence”), from Proto-Germanic *parrukaz ‎(“enclosure, fence”). Cognate with Dutch perk ‎(“flowerbed, garden, pen”), German Pferch ‎(“sheepfold, sheep-pen”), Danish park ‎(“pond”). Related to park, spar.

Noun

paddock ‎(plural paddocks)

1. A small enclosure or field of grassland, especially for horses.
   • 1945 May, George Orwell, chapter 1, in Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 3655473:

     […] the two of them usually spent their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking.

2. (Australia, New Zealand) A field of grassland of any size, especially for keeping sheep or cattle.
3. An area where horses are paraded and mounted before a race and unsaddled after a race.
4. Land, fenced or otherwise delimited, which is most often part of a sheep or cattle property.
5. (motor racing) An area at circuit where the racing vehicles are parked and worked on before and between races.

Derived terms

• heifer paddock
• long paddock

Translations

Verb

paddock ‎(third-person singular simple present paddocks, present participle paddocking, simple past and past participle paddocked)

1. To provide with a paddock. To keep in, or place in, a paddock.

French

Noun

paddock m ‎(plural paddocks)

1. paddock
2. (slang) pad (bed)