curtail dog
curtail dog noun: a dog with a docked tail; formerly, the dog of a person not qualified to course, which, by the forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly from a notion that the tail is necessary to a dog in running.
Noun
curtail dog (plural curtail dogs)
- A dog with a docked tail; formerly, the dog of a person not qualified to course, which, by the forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly from a notion that the tail is necessary to a dog in running.
- Oh that I were but King of France for fourscore or a hundred years! By G--, I should whip like curtail-dogs these runaways of Pavia.1653, Francis Rabelais [i.e., François Rabelais], translated by [Thomas Urquhart, Peter Anthony Motteux], The Works of Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick...
- A dog not fit for sporting.
- Hope is a curtail dog in some affairs.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
Forms of curtail dog
| plural | curtail dogs |
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Questions about curtail dog
- What does curtail dog mean?
- Curtail dog means a dog with a docked tail; formerly, the dog of a person not qualified to course, which, by the forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly from a notion that the tail is necessary to a dog in running.
- What part of speech is curtail dog?
- Curtail dog is a noun.
- What is the plural of curtail dog?
- The plural of curtail dog is curtail dogs.
Words near curtail dog in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: curtail 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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