Wed, 31 Dec 2025 12:30:09 EST
Dog
The noun dog first appears in Anglo-Saxon as docge, which meant a particularly powerful dog, perhaps of a specific breed. The etymology of dog before the Anglo-Saxon period is unknown.
The generic Anglo-Saxon term for dog was hund. Hund evolved into the modern hound, which now specifically names hunting dogs.
Docge (dock-ye) became dogge (dog-ye) in Middle English and had a derogatory connotation (bad dog? nasty dog?). Dogge evolved into the modern generic term dog.