Word.ws English Dictionary

prairie dogging

prairie dogging is the present participle and gerund of prairie dog.

Meaning of prairie dog

Verb

prairie dog (third-person singular simple present prairie dogs, present participle prairie dogging, simple past and past participle prairie dogged)

  1. (ambitransitive, idiomatic) To pop up from a hole or analogous orifice in a manner that resembles the way a prairie dog pops its head up from its burrow.
    • Near-synonym: emerge
  2. (ambitransitive, broadly, euphemistic, idiomatic, slang, vulgar) To struggle to hold back an imminent bowel movement.
    • Kimberly: [needs to go to the bathroom] Dad, I'm prairie dogging it!
      Dad: What the hell does that mean?
      Jason: You know, like when a prairie dog sticks his head in and out of the ground.
      […] Dad: Ohh, god, I do not wanna picture that!2001, Andy Breckman, directed by Jerry Zucker, Rat Race, Jillian Marie (Kimberly Pear), Jon Lovitz (Randy Pear, “Dad”), and Brody Smith (Jason Pear) (actors)

See all 3 meanings of prairie dog

Forms of prairie dogging

alternative formprairie-dogging

Questions about prairie dogging

What is prairie dogging the present participle and gerund of?
Prairie dogging is the present participle and gerund of prairie dog.

Words near prairie dogging in the dictionary

  1. prairie crocus
  2. prairie dock
  3. prairie docks
  4. prairie dog
  5. prairie dogged
  6. prairie dogging
  7. prairie doggings
  8. prairie dogs
  9. Prairie du Chien
  10. prairie fairies
  11. prairie fairy

Source and license

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