dogs

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of dog.

   Several dogs waited patiently outside the shop.

   Farmers often keep dogs to guard their livestock.

   Note

   The regular -s plural, and a spelling the noun shares with the verb's present-tense form, so a dog dogs its quarry. Only the countable senses take it. Dogs are animals, whether pets, wolves or foxes, and never servings, because dog as meat eaten for food is uncountable. The same plural also serves DOG, the initialism for a digital on-screen graphic.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of dog.

   A persistent reporter dogs the senator through every campaign stop.

   Guilt dogs anyone who breaks a promise that serious.

   Note

   The verb form has a range that runs well past pursuit. It can mean following someone to harass them, fastening a hatch (the action behind the hatch fasteners), criticizing in slang, or deliberately working as slowly as one can get away with. One meaning, watching or joining sexual activity in public, is risky to stumble into. Context settles which is meant: rumors dog a career, and an idle worker dogs it.

3. 3
   nounslangUScountableplural

   A slang term for the feet, derived from the rhyming-slang phrase dog's meat.

   After the double shift she kicked off her shoes and groaned that her dogs were aching.

   He propped his dogs up on a chair after the long hike home.

   Similarfeet, plates

   Note

   American slang built by rhyme: feet became dog's meat, and the phrase was then clipped to its first word, so the rhyme itself disappears. It exists only in the plural and usually comes with a possessive: my dogs are tired, her dogs were killing her. Keep it to casual talk about sore, weary feet. In writing or formal speech it reads as a joke or a puzzle.

4. 4
   nounplural

   A greyhound racing event, or the sport of greyhound racing, in which the animals chase a mechanical lure around a track.

   Thousands turned out for the dogs at the newly opened track.

   He lost a week's wages betting on the dogs.

   Similargreyhounds

   Note

   A plural that names a whole pastime and usually takes the definite article: a night at the dogs, betting on the dogs, losing money at the dogs. The article does the work here. He bets on the dogs means greyhound racing, while he bets on dogs is vaguer and could simply mean animals again.

5. 5
   nounslangUScountableplural

   A slang term for the toes.

   The cold tile floor left her dogs numb every morning.

   He lost feeling in two of his dogs after the climb in tight boots.

   Similartoes

   Note

   A narrowing of the slang word for feet, with the same American, strictly plural, casual standing. The playful line about letting the dogs out to play as the shoes come off shows how it works: the joke treats toes as pets released from a pen. Because the two slang senses share one spelling, only context tells toes from whole feet.

6. 6
   nouncountableplural

   Clamps or fittings that hold a watertight hatch firmly closed against the entry of water.

   Like the heavy latches around a pressure cooker lid that lock it down so nothing escapes.

   Before flooding the compartment, the crew checked that every one of the dogs was secure.

   Rust had seized two of the dogs, so the hatch would not seal properly.

   Similarclamps, fasteners

   Note

   A shipboard term used only in the plural, because a watertight hatch is held shut by several of these fittings rather than one. It pairs with the verb, whose meanings include fastening a hatch securely, so crews dog a hatch by setting its dogs. If even a few seize, the seal fails, which is why sailors check all the dogs before trusting a hatch.

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