dogie

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A motherless calf in a range herd of cattle; a calf separated from its cow.

Pronunciation

/ˈdoʊɡi/ /ˈdəʊɡi/

Word forms

dogie dogies dogey dogy

Etymology

Unknown. Possibly an abbreviation of dough-guts, the pot bellied appearance of a malnourished calf. Possibly the transliteration of the slang word dobie/dobe/doby, pejoratively meaning inferior. Since dogie and dobie in reference to an orphaned calf both appeared in print around the same time (1880-1888), it is possible that dogie is the original and dobie is the transliteration.

Synonyms

Related words

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.