alpha-dog
alpha-dog verb: to behave like an alpha dog; to behave in a crassly dominant manner, especially at the expense of another male.
Verb
alpha-dog (third-person singular simple present alpha-dogs, present participle alpha-dogging, simple past and past participle alpha-dogged)
- To behave like an alpha dog; to behave in a crassly dominant manner, especially at the expense of another male.
- At the left was Mr. Trump, the volatile presence who alpha-dogged a season of Republican debates. Now he grimaced, squinted, nodded, pursed his lips, sniffed, huffed and interrupted, becoming, over the night, an agitated man in a box.2016 September 27, James Poniewozik, “How the Split Screen Framed Trump and Clinton”, in The New York Times
- Stormy boasts that she has “grown balls”. Given her “alpha-dogging” of Trump and her jokes about his furry sporran, who knows whether this is more than a metaphor?2018 October 22, Peter Conrad, “Full Disclosure by Stormy Daniels review – duck, Donald…”, in The Guardian
Forms of alpha-dog
| third-person singular present | alpha-dogs |
|---|---|
| present participle | alpha-dogging |
| past participle | alpha-dogged |
| past | alpha-dogged |
Questions about alpha-dog
- What does alpha-dog mean?
- Alpha-dog means to behave like an alpha dog; to behave in a crassly dominant manner, especially at the expense of another male.
- What part of speech is alpha-dog?
- Alpha-dog is a verb.
- What is the past tense of alpha-dog?
- The past tense of alpha-dog is alpha-dogged.
Words near alpha-dog in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: alpha-dog (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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