Idioms

dogs

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dog

1. verb To judge or criticize someone for something. Why are you dogging me about this? It's really not a big deal. If my friends see me with this stupid haircut, they'll dog me for months! After I flubbed that easy catch in the outfield, I knew the coach was gonna dog me about it back in the dugout.
2. verb To follow or pursue someone. You've been dogging me since I left the gas station—what's your deal, man? They hired a private detective to dog him for a few weeks to see what he was up to. You're famous now, so get ready for the paparazzi to dog you whenever you're out in public.
3. verb To persistently trouble someone. I really think she should see a therapist if memories of the accident keep dogging her like that. Even if I move to a new town, my involvement with the crime will still dog me. It'll follow me wherever I go for the rest of my life. Look, these rumors will continue to dog you until you publicly dispel them.
4. noun Something of poor quality. That movie was a real dog—I left before it was over. Darn it, my dog of a suitcase fell apart as I was trying to pack it. Please tell me you're going to get rid of this old dog before it breaks down for good and strands you somewhere
5. noun, rude slang An unattractive or unappealing female. I'm not asking that girl out—she's a real dog! Jackie's a nice girl, she's just kind of a dog, you know? A: "Isn't that girl over by the bar a cutie?" B: "Did you forget to put your contacts in today? She's a dog!"
6. noun, slang The phone. The term comes from rhyming slang in which "dog" is short for "dog and bone," which rhymes with "phone." Primarily heard in UK, Australia. Is that the dog? Can someone answer it? My sister has been blabbing on the dog for hours every night ever since she got a boyfriend. It's so annoying. Would you get off the dog already? I need to make a call!

dogs

The feet. Boy, are my dogs tired after all that walking! We had to walk about 30 miles after our car broke down, and my dogs are barking now! Whew, can we sit down? My dogs need a break after all that dancing!
See also: dog
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
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References in classic literature
Still limping, the dog hobbled to the garden-edge, dug a hole and lay down in it.
SIR--I give you the dog because of what you got me out of.
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Ay, it passed; for many a dog, as well as a human, had he, Bashti, devoured in his hey-dey of appetite and youth, when he knew only motion and strength, and fed motion and strength out of the calabashes of feasting.
"Some dog, that dog, sure some dog," he might have uttered in Van Horn's fashion of speech.
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He found the box with the tinder in it; but just as he was kindling a light, and had struck a spark out of the tinder-box, the door burst open, and the dog with eyes as large as saucers, which he had seen down in the tree, stood before him and said:
Get me money!' he cried to the dog, and hey, presto!
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"As I was sayin', Henry, we've got six dogs. I took six fish out of the bag.
"We've got six dogs," the other reiterated dispassionately.
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Kotuko went out, day after day, with a light hunting-sleigh and six or seven of the strongest dogs, looking till his eyes ached for some patch of clear ice where a seal might perhaps have scratched a breathing-hole.
The dogs' meat was taken for human use, and Amoraq fed the team with pieces of old summer skin-tents raked out from under the sleeping-bench, and they howled and howled again, and waked to howl hungrily.
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The dog had liked him from the start, and had followed him.
To him it was the most natural thing in the world thus to be familiarly seized and shaken about by a total stranger, while a jovial voice muttered: "That's right, dog. Stick around, stick around, and you'll wear diamonds, maybe."
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Considering that the price of dogs had been boomed skyward by the unwonted demand, it was not an unfair sum for so fine an animal.
He speedily learned that Perrault and Francois were fair men, calm and impartial in administering justice, and too wise in the way of dogs to be fooled by dogs.
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Once, with a muttered imprecation, Kama leaped away, a stick of firewood in hand, and clubbed apart a tangle of fighting dogs. Daylight, between mouthfuls, fed chunks of ice into the tin pot, where it thawed into water.
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