Dog
nounA domesticated four-legged animal kept as a pet or working companion.
How to spell dog
3 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce dog
What does dog mean?
- nounA domesticated four-legged animal kept as a pet or working companion.
Dog in a sentence
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The neighbours walk their dog along the canal every morning.
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A guide dog helps its owner cross the busy road safely.
Where does dog come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word dog is a genuine puzzle in the history of English. It appears in late Old English as 'docga', a form that surfaces only rarely and seems to have named a particular powerful breed rather than canines in general. The ordinary Old English word for the animal was 'hund', the ancestor of modern 'hound', so 'docga' began life as a kind of specialist term. Over the medieval period the mysterious 'dog' word steadily pushed 'hound' aside until it became the everyday name for the entire species, while 'hound' narrowed to mean a hunting dog. What makes the case so striking is that no convincing source has ever been found in any related language; the deeper origin is simply unknown, which is why scholars treat 'dog' as one of English's home-grown mystery words.
How the word is built
- dog (single Old English root, no affixes)
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