doghole
Syllables: dog·hole/ˈdɒɡhəʊl//ˈdɔɡˌhoʊl/
doghole noun: a place regarded as fit only for dogs: a horrid, mean habitation.
Noun
doghole (plural dogholes)
- A place regarded as fit only for dogs: a horrid, mean habitation.
- But, cou’d you be content to bid adieu / To the dear Play-houſe, and the Players too, / Sweet Country Seats are purchas’d ev’ry where, / With Lands and Gardens, at leſs price, than here / You hire a darkſom Doghole by the year.1693, Decimus Junius Juvenalis, John Dryden, transl., “[The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis.] The Third Satyr”, in The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis. Translated into English Verse. […]...
- This is the first time I was ever weary of England, and longed to be in Ireland, but it is because go I must; for I do not love Ireland better, nor England, as England, worse; in short, you all live in a wretched, dirty Doghole and Prison, but it is a Place good enough to die in.1726, Jonathan Swift, Letter to Sheridan
- A small, shallow bay or inlet, usually surrounded by high cliffs, that is accessible only by smaller boats.
- Not always this forbidding, some doghole ports like New Haven had safe handling records and managed to load 185 consecutive ships without an incident until the 130 ton Adelaide hit the rocks when a mooring chain broke.1983, Billy C. Lewis, “Doghole Schooners of the Redwood Coast”, in The Compass, page 22
- Ft . Ross was a popular doghole, but its anchorage was discovered much earlier.1984, Donald H. Keith, Underwater Archaeology, page 104
- A type of small schooner designed in the 19th century to navigate in shallow waters and to conduct coastal shipping in and out of doghole ports.
- A far cry from the miserable existance^([sic]) of the common sailor brought about by bucko mates and bible preaching captains on the large ocean-going vessels, life aboard a doghole wasn't for everyone and losing your ship on the rocks or being rolled like a cork on a big wave chased many back to...1983, Billy C. Lewis, “Doghole Schooners of the Redwood Coast”, in The Compass, page 24
- It happened one year, early in the last century, when a doghole schooner foundered , and the poor young man was drowned along with several sailors.2017, M Dressler, The Last to See Me
- A mine worked by fewer than fifteen miners, which is small enough that some safety laws do not apply.
- They know there are thousands of coal miners desperately in need of work, and they know the doghole operators cannot afford to pay these men union wages.1973, Gene L. Mason, Fred Vetter, The Politics of Exploitation, page 191
- Most miners insist they would rather rob a bank or go on welfare than work in a doghole.1974, George Vecsey, One Sunset a Week: The Story of a Coal Miner, page 55
- An excavated area that acts as an access hole or that connects different parts of a mine.
- The second doghole, driven at 385 feet to one of the pumping units, penetrated a water course, and within a few hours caved material had filled the shaft to 366 feet.1962, F. G. Schwartz, B. H. Eccleston, Survey of Research on Thermal Stability of Petroleum Jet Fuels, page 74
- Stope preparation includes the excavation of finger raises, sidelines, undercuts, and dogholes as well as the longholing and blasting of pillars formed by this work.1965, R. L. Bolmer, Stresses Induced Around Mine Development Workings by Undercutting and Caving, Climax Molybdenum Mine, Colorado
- A tiny, uncomfortable hole or cell, usually too small to stand in, in which prisoners are confined as punishment.
- When they want to punish someone, he is put down in a doghole.2011, Jack Vance, Ecce and Old Earth
- "Into the doghole with him!" the warden commanded.2020, Holman Day, When Egypt Went Broke
- An underground bolthole dug to hide from enemy soldiers.
- Forcing 160 of the survivors out of their dogholes, they shot 60 of them to death on the spot.1970 May 21, United States. Congress, Congressional Record
- Many of those who had time to get down into dogholes beneath the houses were asphyxiated.1972, The Human Cost of Communism in Vietnam, page 67
- One of the entrances to a system of prairie dog tunnels.
- Within a week after the volatile drug was placed in the dogholes and the entrances covered up, all but a couple of the animals had been killed.2014, Robert A. Mullins, 12 Monkeys & A Green Jacket, page 72
- Bowles looke out over the plain again and noticed every little thing–the rattleweed, planted to regularly on the sandy flat; the dogholes, each with its high-topped mound to keep out the rain and floods; the black line of mesquite brush against the distant hills;2021, Dane Coolidge, The Collected Works of Dane Coolidge
- A hole that was dug by a dog.
- Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times expecially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely than ever, but...1833, Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Restartus
- At this season, one must let sleeping dogs lie, and Grover was wont to retire to the cool shade of his latest doghole scooped out under the dogwood tree by the garden gate and growl "get lost" to anyone who ventured too close.1962, Alexander Crosby Brown, Life with Grover, page 56
- A hole drilled for the placement of a bench dog.
- The most conspicuous addition is the screw- operated tail vise found at the right corner of the bench, which was designed to be used in conjunction with a row of dogholes.1997, James M. Gaynor, Eighteenth-Century Woodworking Tools, page 168
- Drill some dogholes, mount a vise, and you have a useful addition to your shop.2008, Woodworking Techniques
Verb
doghole (third-person singular simple present dogholes, present participle dogholing, simple past and past participle dogholed)
- To work in a doghole mine, especially to manually dig up a vein.
- Mostly, these activities are restricted to small tunneling, diggings, and dogholing from which the ore is extracted and sent to small cyanidation plants for gold recovery;1992, Minerals Yearbook - Volume 3, page 231
- An' doghole that goddamn seam, too.2004, Thomas E. Douglass, A Room Forever, page 118
Examples of doghole in a sentence
- I am proud to welcome you to my house, though 'tis but a doghole, may it please your Grace, a mere doghole.1886, B.C. Stephenson, Alfred Cellier, Dorothy:
- Nice was then no glamorous watering hole but a 'doghole' – 'the most doghole I think that be in world', so Mason wrote to Pate.2012, Susan Brigden, Thomas Wyatt: The Heart's Forest, page 379:
- These "Doghole” coves were "not much bigger than a hole a dog might crawl into, squirm around and crawl out again."1987, Going Places, page 30:
- With only the most rudimentary navigational equipment, courageous captains regularly put their small schooners into doghole ports under extremely difficult conditions.2011, Stephen W. Hinch, Hiking & Adventure Guide to the Sonoma Coast & Russian River, page 12:
Forms of doghole
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | dogholes |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | dogholes |
| present participle | dogholing |
| past participle | dogholed |
| past | dogholed |
Origin of doghole
From Middle English doghole. By surface analysis, dog + hole.
Questions about doghole
- What does doghole mean?
- Doghole means a place regarded as fit only for dogs: a horrid, mean habitation.
- How do you use doghole in a sentence?
- I am proud to welcome you to my house, though 'tis but a doghole, may it please your Grace, a mere doghole.
- What part of speech is doghole?
- Doghole can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce doghole?
- Doghole is pronounced /ˈdɒɡhəʊl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of doghole?
- The plural of doghole is dogholes.
Words near doghole in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: doghole (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-doghole.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-doghole.wav.
Cite this entry: “doghole.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/doghole. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.