Word.ws English Dictionary

three-dog night

three-dog night noun: a very cold night.

Noun

three-dog night (plural three-dog nights)

  1. (dated, idiomatic) A very cold night.

Forms of three-dog night

pluralthree-dog nights
alternative formthree dog night

Origin of three-dog night

An Inuit saying, used to indicate a low temperature during the night, and during very frigid temperatures, one would require three sled dogs in the igloo to keep oneself warm.

Questions about three-dog night

What does three-dog night mean?
Three-dog night means a very cold night.
What part of speech is three-dog night?
Three-dog night is a noun.
What is the plural of three-dog night?
The plural of three-dog night is three-dog nights.

Words near three-dog night in the dictionary

  1. three-dimensional printing
  2. three-dimensionalism
  3. three-dimensionalities
  4. three-dimensionality
  5. three-dimensionally
  6. three-dog night
  7. three-dog nights
  8. three-door
  9. three-Ds
  10. three-eighths
  11. three-episode rule

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: three-dog night (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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