Terrier

How to spell terrier

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce terrier

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does terrier mean?

1. nounA small, energetic breed of dog originally bred to hunt burrowing animals.

Terrier in a sentence

• The terrier dug furiously at the rabbit hole in the garden.

• Their wiry terrier barked at every passing cyclist.

Where does terrier come from?

Language of origin: French

The word comes from the French phrase chien terrier, meaning literally 'earth dog', where terrier was built on the Latin terra, meaning 'earth' or 'ground'. The name reflects the breed's original working purpose: these small, tenacious dogs were bred to pursue foxes, badgers, and rats into their underground burrows, digging into the soil to flush or seize their quarry. English adopted the word in the late 1400s, taking the French adjective and using it as a noun for the dog itself. The same terra root sits inside familiar words such as 'terrain', 'territory', and 'terrace', all of which share the sense of land or ground, and remembering that the dog works the earth is a tidy way to fix the double r in the spelling.

How the word is built

• terr- (from Latin terra: earth, ground)
• -ier (agent/occupational suffix)