Definition
nounSomething used for fastening, which can only be opened with a key or combination.
nounA mutex or other token restricting access to a resource.
Sentence Examples
They forgot to lock the door.
I forgot to lock the drawer.
She turned the key in the lock.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *lewg-der.
Proto-Germanic *luką
Proto-West Germanic *lok
Old English loc
Middle English lok
English lock
From Middle English lok, from Old English loc, from Proto-West Germanic *lok, from Proto-Germanic *luką from Proto-Indo-European *lewg- (“to bend; turn”).
Cognate with Cimbrian loch, lòch (“hole”), Dutch lok (“hole”), German Loch (“hole”), German Low German Lock (“hole”), Luxembourgish Lach (“hole”), Vilamovian łöch (“hole”), Yiddish לאָך (lokh, “hole”), Danish låg (“lid, cover”), Norwegian Bokmål lokk (“lid, cover”), Norwegian Nynorsk lok, lokk (“lid, cover”).
more detail
The verb is from Middle English locken, lokken, louken, from Old English lūcan, Proto-West Germanic *lūkan, from Proto-Germanic *lūkaną. Cognate with Dutch luiken (“to close, to shut”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål lukke (“to close, to shut”), Faroese lúka (“to end, to finish”), Icelandic ljúka (“to close, to shut”), Norwegian Nynorsk lukka (“to close, to shut”). Related to luxe via Latin.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
""Give me the key," said my mother; and though the lock was very stiff, she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling."
— 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:
"We tiptoed into the house, up the stairs and along the hall into the room where the Professor had been spending so much of his time. 'Twas locked, of course, but the Deacon man got a big bunch of keys out of his pocket and commenced to putter with the lock."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"[T]he application must first acquire a lock on a file or a portion of a file before reading data and modifying it."
— 2005, Karl Kopper, The Linux Enterprise Cluster:
"Here the canal came to a check, ending abruptly with a large lock."
— 1846, William Makepeace Thackeray, Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo:
""I never saw such a gun in my life," replied poor Winkle, looking at the lock, as if that would do any good."
— 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC: