dog - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

A dog (a Labrador retriever)

Inherited from Middle English dogge[1] (akin to Scots dug), from Old English dogga, docga,[2][3] of uncertain origin.

The original meaning seems to have been a common dog, as opposed to a well-bred one, or something like 'cur', and perhaps later came to be used for stocky dogs. Possibly a pet-form diminutive with suffix -ga (compare frocga (“frog”), *picga (“pig”)), appended to a base *dog-, *doc- of unclear origin and meaning. One possibility is Old English dox (“dark, swarthy”) (compare frocga from frox).[4] Another proposal is that it derives from Proto-West Germanic *dugan (“to be suitable”), the origin of Old English dugan (“to be good, worthy, useful”), English dow, Dutch deugen, German taugen. The theory goes that it could have been an epithet for dogs, commonly used by children, meaning "good/useful animal".[5] Another is that it is related to *docce (“stock, muscle”), from Proto-West Germanic *dokkā (“round mass, ball, muscle, doll”), whence English dock (“stumpy tail”).

In 14th-century England, hound (from Old English hund) was the general word for all domestic canines, and dog referred to a subtype resembling the modern mastiff and bulldog.[6] By the 16th century, dog had become the general word, and hound had begun to refer only to breeds used for hunting.[7] In the 16th century, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff.[8]

Despite similarities in forms and meaning, not related to Mbabaram dog.

dog (countable and uncountable, plural dogs)

  1. A mammal of the family Canidae:
    1. The species Canis familiaris (sometimes designated Canis lupus familiaris), domesticated for thousands of years and of highly variable appearance because of human breeding.
      • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
        The preposterous altruism too! […] Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.
      • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
        When Timothy and Julia hurried up the staircase to the bedroom floor, where a considerable commotion was taking place, Tim took Barry Leach with him. […]. The captive made no resistance and came not only quietly but in a series of eager little rushes like a timid dog on a choke chain.
        The dog barked all night long.
    2. Any member of the family Canidae, including domestic dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, foxes, and their relatives (extant and extinct); canid.
      • 1989, John L. Gittleman, Carnivore Behavior, Ecology, and Evolution, page 561:
        This includes the development of hyena-like bone crushers (Osteoborus and Borophagus), a large bone-crushing hunting dog (Aelurodon), and another borophagine frugivorous dog (Carpocyon).
    3. (often attributive) A male dog, wolf, or fox, as opposed to a bitch or vixen.
      • 1908, Dogdom, volume 9, page 337, column 1:
        Entirely disregarding sex, Ch. Searchlight has a beautiful Cocker head, but as he is a dog, his head is too fine and far too much upon the bitchy order.
      • 1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin, published 2013, page 149:
        Firstly, he was there to encourage and assist the hounds (a scratch pack – mostly dog-hounds drafted from fox-hound kennels because they were over-sized) […]
  2. (uncountable) The meat of this animal, eaten as food.
    Did you know that they eat dog in parts of Asia?
  3. A person:
    1. (slang, derogatory) A dull, unattractive girl or woman.
      She’s a real dog.
    2. (slang) A man, guy, chap.
      You lucky dog!
    3. (derogatory) Someone who is cowardly, worthless, or morally reprehensible.
      Come back and fight, you dogs!
      You dirty dog.
    4. (slang) A sexually aggressive man.
      • 2005, “Stay Fly”, in Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, Willie Hutchinson (lyrics), Most Known Unknown‎[4], performed by Three 6 Mafia (featuring Young Buck, 8 Ball, and MJG), Sony BMG:
        DJ Paul is a dog; one you do not trust.
  4. A mechanical device or support:
    1. Any of various mechanical devices for holding, gripping, or fastening something, particularly with a tooth-like projection.
      • 2009, ForestWorks, Chainsaw Operator's Manual, page 41:
        Whenever possible, let the tree support the weight of the chainsaw. Pivot the saw, using the saw's dogs (spikes) as a fulcrum.
    2. A click or pallet adapted to engage the teeth of a ratchet wheel, to restrain the back action.
      Synonyms: click, pallet, pawl, ratchet
    3. A metal support for logs in a fireplace.
      The dogs were too hot to touch.
    4. (transport, historical) A double-ended side spike driven through a hole in the flange of a rail on a tramway.
  5. (cartomancy) The eighteenth Lenormand card.
  6. A hot dog: a frankfurter, wiener, or similar sausage; or a sandwich made from this.
    Alternative form: 'dog
    • 1994 July 21, Faye Fiore, “Congress relishes another franking privilege: Meat lobby puts on the dog with exclusive luncheon for lawmakers – experts on pork”, in Los Angeles Times‎[5]:
      Congressmen gleefully wolfed down every imaginable version of the hot dog – smoked kielbasas, jumbo grillers, Big & Juicy's, kosher dogs and spiced dogs […]
  7. (poker slang) An underdog.
  8. (slang, chiefly in the plural) Foot; toe.
    My dogs are barking! ― My feet hurt!
    You look good in those shoes with your dogs out! ― You look good wearing shoes that show your toes!
  9. (Cockney rhyming slang) (from "dog and bone") Phone or mobile phone.
    My dog is dead.
    My mobile-phone battery has run out of charge and is no longer able to function.
  10. One of the cones used to divide up a racetrack when training horses.
  11. (informal) Something that performs poorly.
  1. (film) A flop; a film that performs poorly at the box office.
    • 1969, Ski, volume 34, number 4, page 121:
      Blue was released, and as Redford had predicted, it was a dog.
    • 2012, Ronald L. Davis, Duke: The Life and Image of John Wayne:
      "When The Alamo was coming out, the word of mouth on it was that it was a dog," Chase said.
  2. (firearms, archaic) A cock, as of a gun.
  1. (preceded by definite article) A dance having a brief vogue in the 1960s in which the actions of a dog were mimicked.

dog (third-person singular simple present dogs, present participle dogging, simple past and past participle dogged)

  1. (transitive) To pursue with the intent to catch.
    Synonyms: chase, chase after, go after, pursue, tag, tail, track, trail
  2. (transitive) To follow in an annoying or harassing way.
    The woman cursed him so that trouble would dog his every step.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:
      […] they were discovered in a very improper manner by the husband of the gypsy, who, from jealousy it seems, had kept a watchful eye over his wife, and had dogged her to the place, where he found her in the arms of her gallant.
    • 2012 January, Michael Riordan, “Tackling Infinity”, in American Scientist‎[6], volume 100, number 1, archived from the original on 30 April 2013, page 86:
      Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physical theories, including quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied far more effort than was spent in originating the theories.
    • 2012 May 9, Jonathan Wilson, “Europa League: Radamel Falcao's Atlético Madrid rout Athletic Bilbao”, in the Guardian‎[7]:
      But this is not an Athletic that ever looks comfortable at the back – a criticism that has often dogged Marcelo Bielsa's sides.
    • 2021 June 21, Daisuke Wakabayashi, “Google Executives See Cracks in Their Company’s Success”, in The New York Times‎[8], →ISSN:
      Yet Google, which was founded in 1998, is dogged by the perception that its best days are behind it.
  3. (transitive, nautical) To fasten a hatch securely.
    It is very important to dog down these hatches.
  4. (intransitive, emerging usage in British) To watch, or participate, in sexual activity in a public place.
    I admit that I like to dog at my local country park.
    • 2012, The Onion Book of Known Knowledge, page 118:
      Lightning [is a] burst of charged particles that lights up the sky and allows onlookers to see who's dogging in the bushes without using a flashlight.
  5. (intransitive, transitive) To intentionally restrict one's productivity as employee; to work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished.
    Synonyms: soldier, goldbrick
    A surprise inspection of the night shift found that some workers were dogging it.
  6. (transitive, slang) To criticize.
  7. (transitive, military) To divide (a watch) with a comrade.
    • 1902, Winfield Scott Schley, Record of Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry:
      A. We never stood 4 to 8 p.m. watches, sir. We dogged our watches.
      Q. I suppose that is 6 to 8 p.m., then; it is a little indistinct. I mean the second dog watch.
    • 2015, Tom Vetter, 30,000 Leagues Undersea:
      Meanwhile, we dogged the watch sections so that both halves of the crew could fetch full sea bags of uniforms and gear […]

pursue with the intent to catch

follow in an annoying way

Clipping of dogshit.

dog (not comparable)

  1. (slang) Of inferior quality; dogshit.
  1. ^ Hans Kurath, Sherman M. Kuhn, Middle English Dictionary (1962, →ISBN), page 4, page 1204
  2. ^ Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller (1898) “docga”, in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  3. ^ Laurel Brinton, Alexander Bergs, Old English (2017, →ISBN), page 59: "In addition, the velar [ɡɡ] and palatal [ɡɡj] geminates could be written as or , as in ~ ..."; Richard M. Hogg, Norman Francis Blake, The Cambridge History of the English Language (1992, →ISBN), volume 1, age 91 says much the same.
  4. ^ Piotr Gąsiorowski, 2006. The Etymology of Old English *docga. Indogermanische Forschungen, 111.
  5. ^ [1]
  6. ^ [2]
  7. ^ [3]
  8. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “dog”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

From Dutch docht.

dog

  1. Alternative form of dag (preterite of dink)

Inherited from English dog.

dog

  1. dog

Inherited from English dog. Cognate with Tok Pisin dok.

dog

  1. dog

Derived from English dog, which is translation of 狗 (gau2, “dog”), which is a homophone of 九 (gau2, “nine”), which is a euphemism of 鳩／鸠 (gau1, “fucking; stupid”).

dog

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, Internet slang, leetspeak, euphemistic) Alternative form of 鳩／鸠 (gau1)

dog

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, Internet slang, leetspeak, euphemistic) Alternative form of 鳩／鸠 (gau1)

From English dog.

dog

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) The name of the Latin-script letter D/d.

Inherited from Old Danish dogh, which was borrowed from Middle Low German doch, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *þauh.

dog

  1. however
    Det er dog ikke sikkert, at de taler sandt.
    It is, however, not certain that they are telling the truth.
  2. Conveying impressedness, emotional affectation, bewilderment.
    Hvor er den hund dog nuttet!
    How cute that dog is!
    Sikke dramatisk du dog kan fremstille sagen!
    How dramatically you can present the matter!

dog

  1. though

Borrowed from English dog. Attested since the 16th century.

dog m (plural doggen, diminutive dogje n)

  1. a large dog, especially one of certain breeds

Inherited from English dog.

dog

  1. dog

From *dwog(a) < *udwoga < *gudwaga < Proto-Pama-Nyungan *gudaga. Related to Dyirbal guda, Yidiny gudaga. False cognate of English dog.[1][2]

dog

  1. dog

  2. ^ Language Hat, excerpting Dixon's Memoirs of a Field Worker

  3. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Stephen R. Anderson, Languages: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2012), 36.

Onomatopoeic.

dog

  1. thump, dub (sound of a heartbeat; thumping sound of a person walking on the roof of a house as heard by someone in the house)

dog

  1. however

dog

  1. though

Borrowed from English dog, from Middle English dogge, from Old English dogga, docga.

dog m animal

  1. mastiff

dog m (plural dogs)

  1. Alternative form of dogue

Borrowed from French dogue, from English dog.

dog m (plural dogi)

  1. mastiff

Declension of dog

| | singular | plural | | | | | -------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | indefinite articulation | definite articulation | indefinite articulation | definite articulation | | | nominative/accusative | (un) dog | dogul | (niște) dogi | dogii | | genitive/dative | (unui) dog | dogului | (unor) dogi | dogilor | | vocative | dogule | dogilor | | |

dog

  1. past indicative of dö

Torres Strait Creole

[edit]

Derived from English dog.

dog

  1. dog

Borrowed from English dog.

dog (nominative plural dogs)

  1. dog
    • 1952, Arie de Jong, Diatek nulik: Gospul ma ‚Matthaeus’. Kapit: VII:
      No givolsöd saludikosi doges, e no jedolsöd pärlatis olsik foi svins! dat bo no dästepons onis me lögs oksik, e flekons okis, e dasleitons olis.
      Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not cast pearls before swine, or they may trample them and then turn on you and tear you to pieces.