Dog/dogs

The word dog, of course, describes a quadruped of the genus Canis, and dates from Anglo-Saxon Old English, whereas the Germanic languages favour hund, from which the English word 'hound' derives, and is generally used to describe types of hunting dogs. When applied to humans, 'dog' can mean a variety of things depending on the context. Since the 12th century, it can mean a worthless, surly, cowardly or sly male, but also the complete opposite, as in an attractive, gallant, happy fellow or 'gay dog'. Since the 1500s, dog could be used with any number of following words, nouns or adjectives, to describe people or things of inferior quality or sham. For example, 'dog-cheap', dog Latin, etc. In America since the early 1800s, dogs has been a colloquial term for sausages, believed to have derived from German immigrants who called their small sausages 'Dachshund sausages' after their small, long breed of dog, the 'Dachshund', which Americans (and the British) called 'sausage dogs'. 'Dachshunds were soon forgotten, and sausages simply became known 'dogs', not so much in Britain, but very much so in America. Dogs in the plural is also slang for 'feet'. This usage derives originally from British rhyming slang, dogs' meat/feet, which is first attested from the early 20th century c. 1913, but was soon taken up in America, particularly the southern states, where its rhyming-slang origin was soon forgotten, and feet were simply called 'dogs'. In modern times, a dog is slang for an unattractive woman and dates from the 1950s, but in this long overdue age of gender equality, it can be applied to men too.