sock
1 Americannoun
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socks,
plural
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sox
plural
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a short stocking usually reaching to the calf or just above the ankle.
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a lightweight shoe worn by ancient Greek and Roman comic actors.
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comic writing for the theater; comedy or comic drama.
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Furniture. a raised vertical area of a club or pad foot.
idioms
verb (used with object)
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socks,
present (3rd person singular)
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socked,
past participle, past
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socking
present participle
noun
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a hard blow.
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a very successful show, performance, actor, etc..
The show was a sock.
adjective
verb phrase
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sock in to close or ground because of adverse weather conditions.
The airport was socked in.
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sock away to put into savings or reserve.
noun
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a cloth covering for the foot, reaching to between the ankle and knee and worn inside a shoe
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an insole put in a shoe, as to make it fit better
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a light shoe worn by actors in ancient Greek and Roman comedy, sometimes taken to allude to comic drama in general (as in the phrase sock and buskin ) See buskin
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another name for windsock
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informal to make a determined effort, esp in order to regain control of a situation
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slang be quiet!
verb
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(tr) to provide with socks
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slang (of an airport) closed by adverse weather conditions
verb
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(usually tr) to hit with force
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to make a forceful impression on
noun
Usage
What is a basic definition of sock? A sock is a piece of clothing worn on the foot that usually extends to around the ankle. As a verb, sock means to hit hard. The word sock has a few other senses as a noun and an adjective. A sock is worn on the foot and is almost always made of cloth, such as cotton or wool. It usually covers the entire foot and stretches to around the ankle but may sometimes extend higher. Socks are almost always made or sold in pairs, in order to cover both feet. The plural of sock is socks or, rarely, sox. Sox rarely appears in formal writing with two exceptions: The names of the American baseball teams the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox (Go Sox!).
- Real-life examples: You are probably wearing a pair of socks right now. Soccer players wear knee-high socks. Most people don’t wear socks while wearing sandals.
- Used in a sentence: Whenever I do laundry, I somehow end up with a leftover sock.
- Used in a sentence: I watched as the boxer was socked right in the jaw and fell down.
- Used in a sentence: After the boxer got a sock in the jaw, he fell down.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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socksimple
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sockssimple
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have sockedperfect
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has sockedperfect
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am sockingprogressive
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are sockingprogressive
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is sockingprogressive
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have been sockingperfect progressive
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has been sockingperfect progressive
Past
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sockedsimple
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had sockedperfect
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was sockingprogressive
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were sockingprogressive
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had been sockingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sock1
First recorded before 900; Middle English sok, socke, Old English socc “light shoe, slipper, stocking,” from Latin soccus
Origin of sock2
First recorded in 1690–1700; origin uncertain
Explanation
A sock is a piece of clothing you wear on your foot, under your shoe, and socks usually come in pairs. You can wear only one sock if you like, but your other foot might get jealous. Some socks barely cover the foot, while others reach up over the knee. When you sock someone, it has nothing to do with footwear; you punch them. If something "knocks your socks off," it makes you extremely enthusiastic or excited, and if your brother tells you to "put a sock in it," he means "be quiet."
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:
Stokes came to the post-match media conference with blood seeping through his sock.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
The state was able to sock away more money in reserves and spend more on education, which is required to get a certain share of revenues.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Wearing a handmade sock puppet with large googly eyes she found at Walmart, Esquivel read “Snuggle Puppy!” in a high-pitched voice as her teenage daughter recorded.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
One smart strategy is to count out six months of expenses and sock that away, then line up more to keep depositing into that account as time rolls forward.
From MarketWatch ● May 11, 2026
He didn’t seem at all ashamed of it, for when I explained and hurried on, he waved his hand, sock and all, saying in his loud, cheerful way...
From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
She’s packed her suitcase too, full of socks she’ll throw away by the end of tour, and a wardrobe almost entirely of black.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2026
There are hundreds of specialised manufacturing towns in China, producing items ranging from bicycles to socks.
From Barron's ● Aug. 31, 2026
The suite came with your standard front-of-the-plane amenities: a bigger screen with remote, bedding, skin-care lotion, socks, eye mask, a reusable water bottle, ear plugs and noise-canceling headphones.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
He gamely wears striped socks and short shorts; she sports Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and clings to her character’s emotional truth like it’s a bucking pterodactyl.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
Wet socks are up there on my list of things that should be banished from existence.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
On August 18, 2017, a new age in astronomy dawned, appropriately, with a tweet: “New LIGO. Source with optical counterpart. Blow your sox off!”
From Scientific American ● Aug. 21, 2019
On 18 August, astronomer J. Craig Wheeler of the University of Texas at Austin began the public rumour mill when he tweeted, “New LIGO. Source with optical counterpart. Blow your sox off!”
From Nature ● Aug. 23, 2017
He confessed in 1951 about the overload, “Two drawers are full, so I’m moving my sox over.”
From New York Times ● Feb. 3, 2015
“They’ve got a couple of big hits the last couple of nights,” said Red sox catcher A.J.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 5, 2014
There's a white shirt and a collar and two pairs of sox, and what not, in there.
From Scattergood Baines by Clarence Budington Kelland
“As satisfying as it may feel to some people to see Meta get socked by this, at the end of the day it’s going to come back and bite you.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2026
Vietnamese savers have socked away around 400 tonnes of the precious metal at home, according to government auditors.
From Barron's ● Jan. 30, 2026
There is a no-shoes policy in the office, the floor is lined with ornate rugs for socked feet, and a chef named Fausto serves lunch six days a week for its 250 employees.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 1, 2025
Mahan socked money away during the summer months and hunkered down in the slow times, before things started picking up around the New Year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2025
He stood, socked in grime, without a shirt upon him, in his wet pit.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
“I do have some clients in their 60s who have a lot of discretionary income. They’re just socking away everything they can. Most people don’t have that kind of discretionary income,” Gilbert said.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 29, 2026
The country has been buying barrels far in excess of its domestic needs over the past year and socking them away in storage.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 12, 2026
Lenders in countries as far away as Germany and Japan are socking away hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipation of loans going bad.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2024
The first issue of Captain America featured Cap socking Adolf Hitler in the jaw, some nine months before the U.S. entered WWII.
From Salon ● Jan. 24, 2024
“I think the people of this state need and deserve a helping hand, and I’m going to see that you get it!” he shouted, socking the air.
From "October Sky" by Homer Hickam
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.
