Word.ws English Dictionary

dogsbody

UK/ˈdɒɡz.bɒ.dɪ//ˈdɔɡz.bɑ.di/

dogsbody noun: a person who does menial work, a servant. Also the alternative form of dog's body.

Noun

dogsbody (plural dogsbodies)

  1. (Ireland, UK) A person who does menial work, a servant.
    • Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 1]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
    • 'Cause I, I wanna be anarchy! / No dogsbody!1976, “Anarchy in the U.K.”, performed by Sex Pistols

Verb

dogsbody (third-person singular simple present dogsbodies, present participle dogsbodying, simple past and past participle dogsbodied)

  1. To act as a dogsbody, to do menial work
    • Perhaps because, having been brought up in all those different countries and languages, and then studying economics of all things for just a year, followed by four years dogsbodying for a haulage company, he had never got any serious reading done.1989, Tim Parks, Family Planning

Also used as

dogsbody is also the alternative form of dog's body.

Synonyms of dogsbody

All synonyms of dogsbody

Forms of dogsbody

Noun
pluraldogsbodies
Verb
third-person singular presentdogsbodies
present participledogsbodying
past participledogsbodied
pastdogsbodied

Origin of dogsbody

From dog + -s- + body. 1818, British navy slang (dog's body), originally derogatory reference to unappetizing pease pudding (compare dog's breakfast), as if it were made of mashed dog meat. In 20th century applied to low-ranked sailors, thence menial servants in wider usage.

Questions about dogsbody

What does dogsbody mean?
Dogsbody means a person who does menial work, a servant.
What part of speech is dogsbody?
Dogsbody can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce dogsbody?
Dogsbody is pronounced /ˈdɒɡz.bɒ.dɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of dogsbody?
The plural of dogsbody is dogsbodies.

Words near dogsbody in the dictionary

  1. dogsat
  2. dogsbane
  3. dogsbanes
  4. dogsbodied
  5. dogsbodies
  6. dogsbody
  7. dogsbodying
  8. dogsbreath
  9. dogsbreaths
  10. dogshank
  11. dogshanks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dogsbody (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-us-dogsbody.ogg, en-au-dogsbody.ogg.

Cite this entry: “dogsbody.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dogsbody. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.