Word.ws English Dictionary

dog-whistley

dog-whistley is the alternative form of dog-whistly.

Meaning of dog-whistly

Adjective

dog-whistly (comparative dog-whistlier, superlative dog-whistliest)

  1. (informal) Of, relating to, or characteristic of dog-whistle politics.
    • But the difference between the "bimbo ad" (which was also a Republican production) and the McCain advert is that the former was explicit in its miscegenation message, whereas the latter is more, well, dog-whistly.2008 August 1, Melissa McEwan, “McCain blows the dog whistle”, in The Guardian

Forms of dog-whistley

comparativedog-whistlier
superlativedog-whistliest

Questions about dog-whistley

What is dog-whistley the alternative form of?
Dog-whistley is the alternative form of dog-whistly.

Words near dog-whistley in the dictionary

  1. dog-watches
  2. dog-weary
  3. dog-whelk
  4. dog-whelks
  5. dog-whistle politics
  6. dog-whistley
  7. dog-whistling
  8. dog-whistly
  9. doga
  10. dogaholic
  11. dogaholics

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dog-whistley (page history and authors); dog-whistly (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-whistley.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dog-whistley. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.