dogwatch
/ˈdɒɡwɒt͡ʃ/
dogwatch noun: aboard a ship, either of the two short two-hour watches that take place between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Noun
dogwatch (plural dogwatches)
- Aboard a ship, either of the two short two-hour watches that take place between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
- […] in the last dog-watch when the drawing near of twilight induced revery […]1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter XII.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC
- A night shift, or other very late or early period of duty.
- The girls we knew were all on the dogwatch, from four to twelve in the morning.1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “Not too Far Tangent”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 1 (1899–1923: A Nothin’ but a Child), page 22
- A very brief period of naval service.
- At that time, Captain Thomas G. Peyton, U.S. Navy, who had only served a dog watch as Captain of the Port at Noumea, New Caledonia, reported for this important billet.1972, George Carroll Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer, page 265
Forms of dogwatch
| plural | dogwatches |
|---|---|
| alternative form | dog watch |
| alternative form | dog-watch |
Origin of dogwatch
From dog + watch, perhaps a calque of German Hundewache.
Questions about dogwatch
- What does dogwatch mean?
- Dogwatch means aboard a ship, either of the two short two-hour watches that take place between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
- What part of speech is dogwatch?
- Dogwatch is a noun.
- How do you pronounce dogwatch?
- Dogwatch is pronounced /ˈdɒɡwɒt͡ʃ/.
- What is the plural of dogwatch?
- The plural of dogwatch is dogwatches.
Words near dogwatch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dogwatch (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:
Cite this entry: “dogwatch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dogwatch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.