dog
/dɒɡ/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun
Forms dogs dogging dogged darg dawg dorg dug doggie doggy doggy woggy doggo dogge doge
- noun The species Canis familiaris (sometimes designated Canis lupus familiaris), domesticated for thousands of years and of highly variable appearance because of human breeding. “The dog barked all night long.”
- noun Any member of the family Canidae, including domestic dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals, and their relatives (extant and extinct).
- noun (often attributive) A male dog, wolf, or fox, as opposed to a bitch or vixen.
- noun (uncountable, rare) The meat of this animal, eaten as food. “Did you know that they eat dog in parts of Asia?”
- noun (slang, derogatory) A dull, unattractive girl or woman. “She’s a real dog.”
- noun (slang) A man, guy, chap. “You lucky dog!”
- noun (derogatory) Someone who overeats or eats rapidly and noisily.
- noun (derogatory) Someone who is cowardly, worthless, or morally reprehensible. “Come back and fight, you dogs!”
- verb (transitive) To pursue with the intent to catch.
- verb (transitive) To follow in an annoying or harassing way. “The woman cursed him so that trouble would dog his every step.”
- verb (transitive, nautical) To fasten a hatch securely. “It is very important to dog down these hatches.”
- verb (intransitive, emerging usage in UK) To watch, or participate, in sexual activity in a public place. “I admit that I like to dog at my local country park.”
- verb (intransitive, transitive) To intentionally restrict one's productivity as employee; to work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished. “A surprise inspection of the night shift found that some workers were dogging it.”
- verb (transitive, slang) To criticize.
- verb (transitive, military) To divide (a watch) with a comrade.
- adjective (slang) Of inferior quality; very bad. “Oh man, this game is absolutely dog!”
- noun (World War II era, joint US/RAF) radiotelephony clear-code word for the letter D.
- proper noun (humorous) The language supposedly spoken by dogs
- proper noun The eleventh of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.
- proper noun (Geordie, slang) Newcastle Brown Ale
Synonyms
canid animal belly-god big back buzgut cormorant epicure gannet glutton gorger gourmand gormandizer greedyguts guttle hog Homer Simpson helluo pig slow belly trencherman domestic dog Canis familiaris frump cad bounder blackguard hound heel frank frankfurter
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English dogge (akin to Scots dug), from Old English dogga, docga, 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). 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". Another one 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. By the 16th century, dog had become the general word, and hound had begun to refer only to breeds used for hunting. In the 16th century, the word dog was adopted by several continental European languages as their word for mastiff.
Despite similarities in forms and meaning, it is not related to Mbabaram dog.
Clipping of dogshit.
The figurative sense "Newcastle Brown Ale" comes from the euphemism "I'm going to walk the dog" or "I'm going to see a man about a dog", meaning "I'm going to the pub for a drink". This was further popularised by a 1980s advertising campaign.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A quadruped of the genus Canis, esp. the domestic dog (C. familiaris).
- noun A mean, worthless fellow; a wretch.
- verb To hunt or track like a hound; to follow insidiously or indefatigably; to chase with a dog or dogs; to worry, as if by dogs; to hound with importunity.
Etymology [AS. docga; akin to D. dog mastiff, Dan. dogge, Sw. dogg.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “dog”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details