Meaning & use
dog
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Meanings
nouncountable
A common animal kept by people as a pet, guard or helper, descended from wolves and known for loyalty and barking.
Grammar: A dog is one animal; dogs is more than one.
Patterns
- walk the dog
- a dog's bark
Our dog waits by the door every evening.
She takes the dog for a long walk before work.
A guide dog helped him cross the street.
nouncountablespecialist
A male of the dog family, such as a fox or a wolf, as opposed to a female.
Grammar: Often contrasted with bitch for females, in breeding contexts.
Patterns
- a dog fox
The dog fox crossed the field at dusk.
Only the dog wolf approached the camp.
The breeder kept one dog and two bitches.
verbtransitivefigurative
To follow or trouble someone persistently, usually for a long time.
Grammar: Takes an object, and is usually passive or used with problems: bad luck dogged him.
Patterns
- be dogged by something
- dog someone
Injuries have dogged the team all season.
The scandal dogged him for years.
Bad weather dogged the whole trip.
nouncountableinformaldisapprovingold-fashioned
A person regarded as unpleasant or low in character.
Grammar: Often found in set expressions; can be mildly insulting.
Patterns
- a dirty dog
Calling someone a dog is an old way of insulting them.
The villain in the old play was called a dirty dog.
The word dog is rude when used about a person.
Word forms
| plural | dogs |
|---|---|
| third person singular | dogs |
| past tense | dogged |
| past participle | dogged |
| -ing form | dogging |
Common combinations
- walk the dog
- I walk the dog every morning.
- guard dog
- They keep a guard dog in the yard.
- dogged by
- The senator was dogged by rumors.
- stray dog
- A stray dog followed us home.
- sniffer dog
- A sniffer dog found the package at customs.
- dog food
- She bought a bag of dog food.
Synonyms and how they differ
- hound
- Hound is a particular kind of hunting dog, and sounds more literary than dog.
- puppy
- Puppy is a young dog, so it is narrower in age.
- pooch
- Pooch is a friendly, informal word used in a playful tone.
- plague
- As a verb, plague means to trouble repeatedly, but it can sound more dramatic than dog.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: dog or dogged?
dog vs dogged
Dogged pronounced with two syllables is an adjective meaning stubbornly determined, whereas the verb dogged has one syllable and means followed by trouble.
Practice
Financial problems ____ the company for most of the decade.
Choose one answer.
Dogged here means troubled persistently. Barked, petted and walked fit a literal animal but not the figurative meaning with problems as the subject.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “dog”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.