doghole

Meanings

1. A place regarded as fit only for dogs: a horrid, mean habitation.
2. A small, shallow bay or inlet, usually surrounded by high cliffs, that is accessible only by smaller boats.
3. A type of small schooner designed in the 19th century to navigate in shallow waters and to conduct coastal shipping in and out of doghole ports.
4. A mine worked by fewer than fifteen miners, which is small enough that some safety laws do not apply.
5. Such a small mine that is dug independently by one or a few miners, often clandestinely and illegally: a bootleg mine.
6. An excavated area that acts as an access hole or that connects different parts of a mine.
7. A tiny, uncomfortable hole or cell, usually too small to stand in, in which prisoners are confined as punishment.
8. An underground bolthole dug to hide from enemy soldiers.
9. One of the entrances to a system of prairie dog tunnels.
10. A hole that was dug by a dog.
11. A hole drilled for the placement of a bench dog.

1. To work in a doghole mine, especially to manually dig up a vein.

Etymology

From Middle English doghole. By surface analysis, dog + hole.