American English
In American English, a dock is technically synonymous with pier or wharf—any human-made structure in the water intended for people to be on. However, in modern use, pier is generally used to refer to structures originally intended for industrial use, such as seafood processing or shipping, and more recently for cruise ships, and dock is used for most everything else, often with a qualifier, such as ferry dock, swimming dock, ore dock and others. However, pier is also commonly used to refer to wooden or metal structures that extend into the ocean from beaches and are used, for the most part, to accommodate fishing in the ocean without using a boat.
In American English, the term for the water area between piers is "slip".
In the cottage country of Canada and the United States, a dock is a wooden platform built over water, with one end secured to the shore. The platform is used for the boarding and offloading of small boats.
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A boat dock on Lake Michigan in Chicago.
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Docks along San Francisco Bay in Tiburon, California
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Floating dock at Mohonk Mountain House
Read more about this topic: Dock (maritime)
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