park
Pluralparks
Pluralparks
- 1A piece of public ground in or near a city or town, kept with grass, trees, and paths for ornament and recreation.
Joggers circle the park each morning before the streets get busy.
The city planted hundreds of cherry trees along the park's main path.
UsageUsually in the park: walk in the park, play in the park.
Note
The town sense is the one that names landmarks. In Hyde Park in London and Central Park in New York it is capitalized as part of the name. It pairs naturally with streets, as in Robert Ferro's The Blue Star (1985): 'I roamed the streets and parks.'
- 2To bring a vehicle to a halt and leave it, or to place vehicles, artillery, or equipment, in a particular place for a time.
She parked the truck behind the loading dock.
Airlines park unused planes in desert storage facilities for months at a time.
UsageUse parking for the activity or available space: no parking, find parking. A parking area is a car park or a parking lot.
Note
The everyday verb, and it reaches well beyond cars: the drive heads of a hard disk are parked before a laptop is carried anywhere, brought to rest where they can do no harm. The core idea is a machine stopped in an allotted place, which ties it to the space reserved for vehicles. Its opposite is unpark, and the gerund parking names the whole business, as in parking by app.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Hard-disk heads are parked before transporting a laptop. seagate.com
- Parking brings the heads to a safe resting place to prevent damage during movement. seagate.com
- 3An open space occupied by, or reserved for, vehicles, military equipment, or supplies.
The coach park outside the stadium was full by noon.
The artillery park held rows of guns and ammunition wagons.
Similardepot
Note
Here park means a holding ground, and a noun usually comes first to say what is held: a wagon park, an artillery park. It names a place where things stand, not the things themselves. The same phrases can also mean a stock of military equipment, so ask whether you could walk into it or only count it.
- 4The field or ground on which a sporting match is played, especially a soccer pitch.
The striker was easily the most dangerous man on the park in the second half.
Heavy rain left the park too muddy for the match to continue.
UsagePlayers are on the park, as they would be on the pitch.
Note
Its stock phrase is the middle of the park, meaning midfield. The BBC's 2010 report of Sunderland against Blackpool credits the home side's 'dominance in the middle of the park'.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The BBC published a report of Sunderland against Blackpool in 2010. en.wiktionary.org
- The report describes Sunderland's dominance using the exact phrase quoted. en.wiktionary.org
- 5An area of land zoned and developed for a particular industrial or commercial purpose.
The county rezoned the farmland as an industrial park to attract manufacturers.
Several biotech startups lease lab space in the park next to the university.
UsageUsually after a word for its purpose: business park, industrial park, science park, solar park.
Similarestate
- 6A spot in a lot or on a street where a car can be left; a parking space.
She circled the lot for ten minutes looking for a park.
If you can't find a park on the street, try the garage on Fifth.
UsageUsually find a park or look for a park, where others say parking space.
Note
In Australia and New Zealand you find a park for the car, where other speakers would say parking space. In Sandy Curtis's thriller Dangerous Deception, James 'found a park relatively easily' in a multistory lot. Elsewhere, 'we finally found a park' may sound like a hunt for green space.
- 7A large tract of land around or attached to a country house, kept largely natural with woodland and pasture, often enclosed and stocked with deer or game for hunting.
The estate's park stretches for two miles, dotted with ancient oaks and grazing deer.
Visitors to the manor can walk the park's bridle paths in summer.
Similargrounds
Note
In this estate sense the enclosure surrounds a great house, and deer graze within it. Edmund Waller, singing at Penshurst, finds 'the listening deer' attending his verse. Unlike the town park, this ground belongs to a residence, not to the public.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Country-house parks can surround the house and contain deer. en.wikipedia.org
- Edmund Waller describes listening deer attending his singing in At Penshurst. gutenberg.org
- 8A large tract of land protected in its natural condition for wildlife and for public enjoyment, such as a national or state park.
Hunting is banned inside the park, so elk graze beside the roads without fear.
Campsites in the state parks fill up quickly once the summer season opens.
Note
The word began as a fence: Old French parc was a livestock pen, and the old hunting preserve kept game enclosed for its owner. This sense turns that around, protecting wild land and its animals for the public. It is usually named by who runs it, a national park or a state park, which also keeps it apart from the town green with its lawns and benches.
Less common meanings
- 9To sit, settle, or place something somewhere, especially in a manner suggesting an intent to remain for some time.
She parked herself at the corner table and refused to move until closing.
You can park the kids in front of a movie while we finish cooking.
UsageOften with -self: park yourself on the couch, parked herself at the table.
Similarplant, settle, plonk, seat
Note
Most at home with a reflexive pronoun: 'He came in and parked himself in our living room.' With an ordinary object it means set something down for a while: park your bags in the hall. A Sax Rohmer character says of his shoes, 'I parked ’em under a rosebush.' Used in the passive, it pictures people settled in place, like Paul Vautin's family 'parked in front of the box'.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- In Sax Rohmer’s The Day the World Ended, Lonergan says, “I parked ’em under a rosebush.” The item omits “’em” without marking the omission. gutenberg.org
- Paul Vautin describes his family as “parked in front of the box”. en.wiktionary.org
- 10To set a matter aside and defer it until a later date.
The committee voted to park the proposal until budget figures were available.
Management parked the merger talks while the lawsuit worked its way through court.
UsageCommon in let's park that for now; it suggests coming back to the matter, unlike drop.
Similarshelve, postpone, defer, suspend
Note
Meeting-room talk borrowed from the vehicle sense: an issue is left standing, ready to be picked up again, as in let's park that until next week. The metaphor promises a return, which sets it apart from dropping a plan outright. News writing often still sets it in quotation marks, as when Warner Bros was said to have 'parked' its Fantastic Beasts series, a sign that the figurative use still reads as informal.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact
- News writing described Warner Bros as having 'parked' its Fantastic Beasts series. en.wiktionary.org
- 11The gear selected on an automatic transmission when a car or truck is stopped and left in place, marked with the symbol P on the shifter.
She shifted into park and let the engine idle while she waited.
Many automatics will not let you remove the key unless the car is in park.
UsageTakes no article: put the car in park, shift into park.
Note
Many cars have a safety interlock that refuses to leave park unless your foot is on the brake pedal. A shifter that will not move is often obeying that rule rather than failing.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Many cars have an interlock that prevents shifting out of park unless the brake pedal is pressed. nhtsa.gov
- 12To hit a pitched ball out of the playing field for a home run.
Ramirez parked a hanging curveball into the upper deck to tie the game.
Few hitters can park an outside pitch the other way like he does.
UsageThe object is the ball or the pitch: park a fastball. Compare hit it out of the park.
Note
The picture is of the ball left out beyond the park, the same image as the fuller hit it out of the park.
- 13To engage in romantic or sexual activity inside a stopped vehicle that has been driven to a secluded spot for that purpose.
On weekends, couples parked at the overlook, windows fogging against the night air.
Half the senior class would park out by the reservoir after the dance.
UsageMost often go parking.
Similarneck
Note
Couples go parking, as Betty does at Silver Lake in Grace Metalious's Peyton Place (1956). The narrator of Big Night (1996), Joseph Tropiano's novel of the film, calls it 'a very American thing.' It looks exactly like the ordinary verb, so a couple and a secluded spot are what signal this meaning.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Grace Metalious wrote Peyton Place, first published in 1956. fadedpage.com
- Betty goes parking at Silver Lake in Peyton Place. fadedpage.com
- Big Night was published in 1996. bookshop.org
- 14A wide valley with a flat bottom, set within a mountainous region.
The herd wintered in a sheltered park ringed by snow-covered peaks.
From the pass, the trail drops into a broad park where the river slows and meanders.
Note
Writers from the late 1800s into the early 1900s call these level-floored valleys 'so-called parks' and a term of 'local topography'. Whitman Cross and Penrose describe High Park at about 7,500 feet. Edward W. Harnden, in 1911, pairs such parks with meadows. The word also forms place names, so a capitalized Park in the Rockies may be a valley rather than a garden.
- 15To invest money temporarily in a relatively low-risk instrument, especially while awaiting other opportunities.
The fund parked its cash in Treasury bills during the market turmoil.
Many investors park their money in money market funds between trades.
UsageThe place usually follows in: park cash in Treasury bills, in a money market fund.
Note
Finance keeps the waiting built into deferring a matter. Money parked in a bond fund is meant to move again 'until market conditions improve'. The choice is usually safe and low-yield, because the money is resting, not working.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The quoted wording about temporarily parking money in a bond fund until market conditions improve occurs in an illustrative example. en.wiktionary.org
- 16To register a domain name without putting it to any active use.
Speculators park desirable domain names, betting that businesses will eventually pay a premium for them.
Before launch, the startup parked a dozen domain names close to its brand name.
UsageMost often met in the noun domain parking.
Note
The name is registered and held, but no working site is put behind it. The address is occupied, like a space with a car in it, yet nothing is going on there. That idleness is the point.
- 17The complete stock of military vehicles, artillery, and other equipment held by a force.
By 1944 the division's park amounted to a few worn guns and borrowed transport.
Quartermasters audited the entire park before the regiment shipped overseas.
Note
Here the park is a stock, not a place. A country's tank park or artillery park means all the tanks or guns it holds. Because the same phrases can name a holding ground for vehicles, context decides the meaning. An inventory is something you count; a ground is something you stand on.
- 18To walk, drive, or ride about in a park for pleasure, often to see and be seen or to show off one's horse or carriage.
Note
A dated social verb from the days of the park drive. To park was to take one's turn there, on foot or in a carriage, as a pleasure and a public appearance. It is intransitive: people parked, but they did not park anything. Modern readers will hear the vehicle verb, so keep it to period writing.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Park had a dated, intransitive sense meaning to promenade or drive in a park. en.wiktionary.org
- The park drive was a social occasion involving public display. friendshpkg.org.uk
- 19To shut animals or land within a park or a similarly enclosed space.
O, negligent and heedless discipline! How are we park'd and bounded in a pale, A little herd of England's timorous deer, Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!
1591, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt” - 20A partially enclosed basin of shallow seawater in which oysters are raised.
- 21To enclose oysters in a park or partially enclosed basin for cultivation.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
Probably from Frankish *parrik ("enclosure, pen, fence"), the word passed through Medieval Latin parcus or parricus to Old French parc ("livestock pen") and then Middle English park. Relatives include Dutch perk and Old English pearroc, which became modern "paddock," along with similar words in Old High German and Old Norse.