Word.ws English Dictionary

dog town

dog town noun: a community of prairie dogs.

Noun

dog town (plural dog towns)

  1. A community of prairie dogs.
    • This ferret feeds on prairie dogs and lives in their abandoned burrows; although it will feed on other small prey, it never thrives away from the dogtowns.2004, Nora Bowers, Rick Bowers, Kenn Kaufmann, Mammals of North America, page 118
  2. (colloquial) A town at which a play is performed for a less important audience to gauge the likelihood of general success.
    • He's rehearsing his first-born for a dog-town opening next week.1917, W. J. Thorold, Arthur Hornblow, Perriton Maxwell, Theatre Magazine, volume 25, page 42
    • And speaking of Mr. Sloan, I note that he believes Chicago is taking New Haven's place as a dog-town.1923, The Drama, volumes 14-15, page 91

Forms of dog town

pluraldog towns
alternative formdogtown

Origin of dog town

(theatrical): See try it on the dog.

Questions about dog town

What does dog town mean?
Dog town means a community of prairie dogs.
What part of speech is dog town?
Dog town is a noun.
What is the plural of dog town?
The plural of dog town is dog towns.

Words near dog town in the dictionary

  1. dog tents
  2. dog that caught the car
  3. dog tired
  4. dog tooth
  5. dog tooths
  6. dog town
  7. dog towns
  8. dog trick
  9. dog tricks
  10. dog tucker
  11. dog violet

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dog town (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 town.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dog_town. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.