Word.ws English Dictionary

dog's life

dog's life noun: a miserable, wretched existence.

Noun

dog's life (plural dogs' lives)

  1. (idiomatic) A miserable, wretched existence.
    • Mr. Ford afterwards had a dogs life among them.1528, J. Strype, Fox Manuscripts, page 174
  2. (idiomatic) A life of indolence where the individual may do as they please, just like a pampered dog.

Forms of dog's life

pluraldogs' lives

Origin of dog's life

First use appears c. 1528. See cite below.

Questions about dog's life

What does dog's life mean?
Dog's life means a miserable, wretched existence.
What part of speech is dog's life?
Dog's life is a noun.
What is the plural of dog's life?
The plural of dog's life is dogs' lives.

Words near dog's life in the dictionary

  1. dog's egg
  2. dog's fennel
  3. dog's fennels
  4. dog's fingers
  5. dog's letter
  6. dog's life
  7. dog's mercury
  8. dog's nose
  9. dog's sleep
  10. dog's soup
  11. dog's tongue

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dog's life (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-dog's life.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dog's life.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dog%27s_life. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.