Used by Warner and Ben Jonson 1586-1610; but an unknown word to Johnson's editors, Whalley 1756, Gifford 1816. Absent from the 18th c. dictionaries, and from Todd, Webster 1828, Richardson; and after 1610, known to us only in BAIL-DOCK, till the 19th c., in which it has become familiar, largely through the writings of Dickens.]
The enclosure in a criminal court in which the prisoner is placed at his trial: it was formerly filled with the prisoners whose trial was put down [scheduled?] for the day." [The first interpolation is the OED editors' and not mine; the second interpolation and the ellipses are mine.]
This discussion is based on the definition of the word dock in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which requires a little explanation.
To Act I or Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.
To the homepage of this Mikado website.
Suggestions, contributions, criticisms, questions? Email Sharon Cogdill.
College of Fine Arts and Humanities
This URL: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/scogdill/mikado/dock.html.
Last update: 19 May 1998.