WILD DOG

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wild dog mean? 

• WILD DOG (noun)
  The noun WILD DOG has 1 sense:

1. any of various undomesticated mammals of the family Canidae that are thought to resemble domestic dogs as distinguished from jackals or wolves

  Familiarity information: WILD DOG used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WILD DOG (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any of various undomesticated mammals of the family Canidae that are thought to resemble domestic dogs as distinguished from jackals or wolves

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("wild dog" is a kind of...):

canid; canine (any of various fissiped mammals with nonretractile claws and typically long muzzles)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wild dog"):

Canis dingo; dingo; warragal; warrigal (wolflike yellowish-brown wild dog of Australia)

Cuon alpinus; dhole (fierce wild dog of the forests of central and southeast Asia that hunts in packs)

crab-eating dog; crab-eating fox; Dusicyon cancrivorus (wild dog of northern South America)

Nyctereutes procyonides; raccoon dog (small wild dog of eastern Asia having facial markings like those of a raccoon)

African hunting dog; Cape hunting dog; hyena dog; Lycaon pictus (a powerful doglike mammal of southern and eastern Africa that hunts in large packs; now rare in settled area)

Holonyms ("wild dog" is a member of...):

Canidae; family Canidae (dogs; wolves; jackals; foxes)

 Context examples 

To man has been given the grief, often, of seeing his gods overthrown and his altars crumbling; but to the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to crouch at man's feet, this grief has never come.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

It was the quality that was peculiarly the possession of his kind; the quality that set apart his species from all other species; the quality that has enabled the wolf and the wild dog to come in from the open and be the companions of man.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Unlike man, whose gods are of the unseen and the overguessed, vapours and mists of fancy eluding the garmenture of reality, wandering wraiths of desired goodness and power, intangible out-croppings of self into the realm of spirit—unlike man, the wolf and the wild dog that have come in to the fire find their gods in the living flesh, solid to the touch, occupying earth-space and requiring time for the accomplishment of their ends and their existence.

(White Fang, by Jack London)