paddock
1 Americannoun
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a small, usually enclosed field near a stable or barn for pasturing or exercising animals.
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the enclosure in which horses are saddled and mounted before a race.
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Australian. any enclosed field or pasture.
verb (used with object)
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paddocks,
present (3rd person singular)
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paddocked,
past participle, past
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paddocking
present participle
noun
noun
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a small enclosed field, often for grazing or training horses, usually near a house or stable
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(in horse racing) the enclosure in which horses are paraded and mounted before a race, together with the accompanying rooms
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(in motor racing) an area near the pits where cars are worked on before races
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any area of fenced land
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a playing field
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informal a stockroute or roadside area offering feed to sheep and cattle in dry times
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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paddocksimple
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paddockssimple
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have paddockedperfect
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has paddockedperfect
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am paddockingprogressive
-
are paddockingprogressive
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is paddockingprogressive
-
have been paddockingperfect progressive
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has been paddockingperfect progressive
Past
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paddockedsimple
-
had paddockedperfect
-
was paddockingprogressive
-
were paddockingprogressive
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had been paddockingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of paddock1
1540–50; variant of Middle English parrok, with r heard as flapped d; Old English pearroc enclosure, originally fence. See park
Origin of paddock2
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English paddok(e), derivative of early Middle English pad “toad” (compare English dialectal pad “frog”); akin to Dutch, Low German pad, Old Norse padda; see -ock
Explanation
A paddock is an area that holds racehorses before a race. Jockeys get the horses ready to go in the paddock. If you've ever gone to a horse race, or seen a race like the Kentucky Derby on TV, you've seen a paddock. This is the pen for the horses, where they hang out before racing. In the paddock, horses are saddled and paraded around by their jockeys. Two other meanings of paddock are related: one is a field for horses on a farm, and the other is an area for race cars to prepare before a race.
Vocabulary lists containing paddock
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Orbiting Jupiter
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Sarah, Plain and Tall
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
At the 170-acre vineyard, horses and cows graze in a paddock; their dung is used for fertilizer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Some in the paddock say the move is "effective" for a sport which needs to move away from a chequered doping past.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2026
He took the unusual step of leaving the paddock between final practice and qualifying to try to get himself in the right head space for the session.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
The Vienna native had already made a fortune as a tech investor before he set foot on a Formula One paddock.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
Nevertheless, without openly ad-mitting it, he was devoted to Boxer; the two of them usually spent their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking.
From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell
In her canola paddocks, she estimates there are about 8,000 to 10,000 mice per hectare - about the size of a rugby field.
From BBC ● May 30, 2026
The property is miles from the highway, accessible on two-lane roads lined by horse paddocks, white fences and canopies of gnarled live oaks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2024
Visual proof came with the drive passing by green fields and paddocks, affording glimpses of some of the backlot's many equine neighbors.
From Salon ● Dec. 23, 2023
The ducks follow a daily routine: In the morning, they go to the vineyards to prevent crop damage, and in the evening they return to their paddocks to peck at pellets of nutritious bird food.
From Reuters ● Jan. 16, 2023
The village was a shabby place: a huddle of wooden buildings, with paddocks containing reindeer, and dogs that barked as he approached.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
Shakespeare himself would have been commonplace had he been paddocked in a thinly shaven vocabulary, and Phidias, had he worked in wax, only a more inspired Mrs. Jarley.
From The Library and Society Reprints of Papers and Addresses by Arthur Elmore Bostwick
A sound like "Goood!" came from the paddocked bull.
From Thy Rocks and Rills by Robert E. Gilbert
Wild and shy, as paddocked merinos always are, these had withdrawn to the quietest places they could find, and were there making the best of a bad job.
From Such Is Life by Joseph Furphy
I've got the car paddocked down near the reserve.
From The Lost Valley by James Morgan Walsh
We had a beautiful, still morning for our ride, and reached the station—a shed standing out on the plain—in time to see our horses safely paddocked before the train started for Christchurch.
From Station Life in New Zealand by Lady (Mary Anne) Barker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
