doc
Pluraldocs
- 1A doctor.
The team doc checked the player for a concussion before letting him back on the field.
Thanks for squeezing me in, Doc; the pain started last night.
Similardoctor, physician, medic
Note
Four different words have been cut down to doc: doctor, document, documentary and doctorate. Nothing in the spelling tells them apart, so the setting does the work: a clinic or a sports team points to the physician, a file or a court case to the paperwork, a film festival to the film.
- 2A document; among professionals, especially a piece of technical documentation or legal evidence.
The API docs explain every endpoint, but they are two versions out of date.
Opposing counsel flagged one doc in the discovery pile as privileged.
Similardocument
Note
Professionals mostly use it in the plural, and the plural has two homes: in software, the docs are the written guides that explain how a program works; in law, docs are the papers gathered as evidence in a case. Outside those trades the full word document is the safer choice, since the clipping sounds like shop talk.
- 3A documentary film or television program.
The festival's best doc follows three families through a year of drought.
Streaming services are spending big on true-crime docs this year.
Similardocumentary
Note
Film people and entertainment writers lean on the clipping, usually in the pattern a doc about someone or something: a doc about a spelling bee, the Apple doc about Billie Eilish. Other Englishes clip the word their own way: Australians say doco, South Africans doccie, and docu is another short form.
- 4Clipping of doctorate.
Her doc in education took four years, most of them spent on a single long thesis.
Before committing to a doc, he spent a year as a research assistant to see whether he liked lab work.
Note
A clipping, so it belongs to casual talk rather than formal writing: a student might say she is finishing her doc, while a CV spells out doctorate. Doc is also short for a doctor and a document, so the setting tells you which one is meant.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of doc apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origins
A shortened form of doctor.
A shortened form of document.
A shortened form of documentary.
A shortened form of doctorate.