wet dock

noun

Nautical.

1. a dock accessible only around the time of high tide and entered through locks or gates.

Word History and Origins

Origin of wet dock¹

First recorded in 1620–30

Example Sentences

She had learned how Liverpool’s 18th-century wealth from the trans-Atlantic trade, and thus the slave trade, owed to an engineering innovation: the world’s first commercial wet dock, allowing 100 ships to berth regardless of the tide.

From New York Times

During filming in Jamaica, Craig slipped while running on a wet dock and badly injured his ankle.

From Seattle Times

Sirens, tugboats and water cannon are expected to mark the Attenborough's departure from builder Cammell Laird's wet dock at Birkenhead.

From BBC

But while many of her systems can be, and have been, tested in wet dock, the ship's readiness for service won't be signed off until she's been through deep-water trials.

From BBC

It was rather as though, after being in makeshift wet dock for days, the Queen Mary had just sailed out of, say, Walden Pond, as suddenly and perversely as she had sailed in.

From Literature