paddock

noun

1. (also, figuratively)A small enclosure or field of grassland, especially one used to exercise or graze horses or other animals.

   “Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock.”

   “A jargonell pear tree at one end of the cottage, a rivulet, and flower-plot of a rood in extent, in front, and a kitchen-garden behind; a paddock for a cow, and a small field, cultivated with several crops of grain rather for the benefit of the cottager than for sale, announced the warm and cordial comforts which Old England, even at her most northern extremity, extends to her meanest inhabitants.”

   “[H]e has delineated estates of romance, from which their actual possessions are shanties and paddocks.”

   “They were not members of a country where literature is confined to its little paddock, without influence on the larger field (part lawn, part marsh) of the social world: they were readers in sympathetic action with thinkers and literary artists.”

   “There was only the extent of a wide paddock and a lawn between the hall-door and that grand old gateway, and the house, though substantial and capacious, hardly pretended to the dignity of a mansion.”

2. (broadly)An enclosure next to a racecourse where horses are paraded and mounted before a race and unsaddled after a race.

   “We left the carriage, bought programmes, and walked across the infield and then across the smooth thick turf of the course to the paddock. […] The paddock was fairly well filled with people and they were walking the horses around in a ring under the trees behind the grand stand.”

   “You remind me of a two-year-old, Dinny—one of those whipcordy chestnuts that kick up their heels in the paddock, get left at the post, and come in first after all.”

3. (broadly)An area at a racing circuit where the racing vehicles are parked and worked on before and between races.
4. (broadly, slang)A field on which a game is played; a playing field.
5. (Australia, New-Zealand, broadly)A field of grassland of any size, either enclosed by fences or delimited by geographical boundaries, especially a large area for keeping cattle or sheep.
6. (Australia, New-Zealand, broadly)A place in a superficial deposit where ore or washdirt (“earth rich enough in metal to pay for washing”) is excavated; also, a place for storing ore, washdirt, etc.
7. (Australia, New-Zealand, Northern-England, Northern-Ireland, Scotland, transitive)A frog.

   “Cold as a paddock.”

   “Also the Lord seide to Moises, Entre thou to Farao, and thou schalt seie to hym, The Lord seith these thingis, Delyuere thou my puple, that it make sacrifice to me; sotheli if thou nylt delyuere, lo! Y schal smyte alle thi termys with paddoks; and the flood schal buyle out paddokis, […]”

   “It is apparent that there be three kinds of Frogs of the earth, the firſt is the little greene Frog: the ſecond is this Padocke, hauing a crooke back, called in Latine Rubeta Gibboſa, and the third is the Toade, commonly called Rubotax, Bufo. […] As ſoone as theſe Paddocks come once into the ayre, out of their cloſe places of generation and habitation, they ſvvell and ſo die.”

   “The vvater-Snake, vvhom Fiſh and Paddocks fed, / VVith ſtaring Scales lies poyſon'd in his Bed: […]”

   “Ower mony maisters—ower mony maisters, as the paddock said to the harrow, when every tooth gae her a tig.”

8. (Australia, New-Zealand, Northern-England, Northern-Ireland, Scotland, transitive)A toad.

   “Where I was wont to ſeeke the honey Bee, / Working her formall rowmes in Wexen frame: / The grieſlie Todeſtoole growne there mought I ſe / And loathed Paddocks lording on the ſame.”

   “Padock calls anon: faire is foule, and foule is faire, / Houer through the fogge and filthie ayre.”

   “[F]rom the hall wherein the mourners died / A grey wolf glared, and o'er his head the bat / Hung, and the paddock on the hearth-stone sat.”

9. (Australia, New-Zealand, Northern-England, Northern-Ireland, Scotland, derogatory, transitive)A contemptible, or malicious or nasty, person.

   “[T]here was grandfaither's siller tester in the puddock’s heart of him.”

10. (Australia, New-Zealand, Scotland, transitive)A simple, usually triangular, sledge which is dragged along the ground to transport items.

verb

1. (Australia, New-Zealand, transitive)To place or keep (cattle, horses, sheep, or other animals) within a paddock (noun sense 1 or 2.4); hence, to provide (such animals) with pasture.

   “In the district of which I am speaking the sheep are all "paddocked," —that is to say, kept in by fences—so that shepherding is unnecessary.”

   “Now, if you went down into the forest where the spring gum-tips gleam gold and ruby in whatever sunshine, Heaven thinks fit to apportion at this season to residents of the Dandenongs (who surely were all born Aquarians) what sign of the Zodiac would you expect to meet? [...] Not Taurus the Bull, who is paddocked, or Cancer the Crab, who lives underground in these regions.”

2. (Australia, New-Zealand, transitive)To enclose or fence in (land) to form a paddock.

   “When a run is "paddocked," shepherds are not required;—but boundary-riders are employed, each of whom is supplied with two horses, and these men are responsible not only for the sheep but for the fences.”

3. (Australia, New-Zealand, also, intransitive, transitive)To excavate washdirt (“earth rich enough in metal to pay for washing”) from (a superficial deposit).
4. (Australia, New-Zealand, obsolete, transitive)To store (ore, washdirt, etc.) in a paddock (noun sense 2.5).

name

1. An English surname.

   “But 64-year-old Stephen C. Paddock flew low under the radar. He avoided interaction with many of the people around him, and his manner was direct and brusque.”