Word.ws English Dictionary

dog-hearted

dog-hearted adjective: inhuman; cruel.

Adjective

dog-hearted (comparative more dog-hearted, superlative most dog-hearted)

  1. (archaic, rare) Inhuman; cruel.
    • A ſoueraigne ſhame ſo elbows him his own vnkindnes
      That ſtript her from his benediction turnd her,
      To forraine caſualties gaue her deare rights,
      To his dog-harted daughters […]c. 1603–1606 (date written), [William Shakespeare], […] His True Chronicle Historie of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Nathaniel Butter, […]...
    • “How many of you dog-hearted giants are left?” Roadstrum called loudly. “Only myself,” came the strong voice of Bjorn. “Come out the two of you and we will see who is dog-hearted.”1976, R. A. Lafferty, Space Chantey
  2. Very fond of dogs.
    • Was Abraham Lincoln's mother dog-hearted? Did the mother of Napoleon waste her time crying because her poodle had the colic?1900, Addison McClung Brownlee, Sermons from the Tripod, page 48
    • For all the dogs who never make it out the front door of the shelter. For all the shelter employees who have to make the hard decisions. And for all the dog-hearted people who are working tirelessly to change the situation.2018, Cara Sue Achterberg ·, Another Good Dog
  3. Subservient and lowly, like a pet dog.
    • The measureless squalor, the calm, house-broken, dog-hearted, subjected, abjected, subtracted, contracted, signed sealed and delivered.1954, Louis Grudin, Inky Darkling, page 176
    • The blessing we seek from God could be the very thing He curses if we do not stay Dog hearted by remaining focused on Him and the honor due His name.2010, Bob Sjogren, Gerald Robison, Cat & Dog Prayer: Rethinking Our Conversations with Our Master, page 77

Examples of dog-hearted in a sentence

  • “You dog-hearted wretch!” sputtered Martin with water streaming down his hair and face.2007, Constance Leeds, The Silver Cup:
  • He'd have to be a dog-hearted barnacle not to taste your good intentions.2012, Erin Knightley, A Taste For Scandal:
  • How do the dog-hearted get through the day when they're not ransacking graves?2014, Marina Carr, The Cordelia Dream:
  • We're gonna drag their dog-hearted king out into the sunlight and watch him sizzle!2016, Yvonne L. Stegman, The Clearsong Chronicles: Battle for Daylight:

Forms of dog-hearted

comparativemore dog-hearted
superlativemost dog-hearted
alternative formdoghearted

Questions about dog-hearted

What does dog-hearted mean?
Dog-hearted means inhuman; cruel.
How do you use dog-hearted in a sentence?
“You dog-hearted wretch!” sputtered Martin with water streaming down his hair and face.
What part of speech is dog-hearted?
Dog-hearted is an adjective.

Words near dog-hearted in the dictionary

  1. dog-fox
  2. dog-foxes
  3. dog-friendlier
  4. dog-friendliest
  5. dog-friendly
  6. dog-hearted
  7. dog-in-the-mangerism
  8. dog-laurel
  9. dog-leg
  10. dog-legged
  11. dog-legging

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dog-hearted (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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Cite this entry: “dog-hearted.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dog-hearted. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.