dog-house
1. a. A house or dwelling for a dog, or for a pack of dogs; a kennel. Now chiefly U.S.
| 1611 Cotgr., Chiennerie, a dog-house, or dog-kennell. a 1613 Overbury Characters, Sargeant Wks. (1856) 164 Not onely those curs at the dog-house, but those within the walls. 1822 W. Irving Braceb. Hall (1823) I. 97 An unhappy cur chained in a doghouse. 1879 F. R. Stockton Rudder Grange vii. 77, I had no dog-house as yet. 1898 S. Hale Lett. (1919) 338 Behind the dog-house there is a warren of..four small animals. 1970 Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) 21 Mar. C2/6 Going to paper a wall?.. Build a doghouse? Lay a patio? |
b. fig., in the dog-house: in disgrace, out of favour. slang (orig. U.S.).
| 1932 Editor 6 Feb. 110/2 Dog-house: in disfavor. ‘My moll caught me tryin' to make that twist, so I'm in the dog-house now.’ 1940 Wodehouse Quick Service xix. 231 Already he was solidly established in the doghouse as the result of that craps business. 1955 Priestley & Hawkes Journey down Rainbow ii. 34 And the men, so often ‘in the dog house’..are baffled and miserable, telling one another that women have always been like this, not knowing what they want, the crazy creatures. 1958 J. Cannan And be a Villain iv. 83 He said to me, ‘I'm in the dog-house over this.’ 1963 P. H. Johnson Night & Silence ix. 55 He'd been getting bad grades, he was in the dog-house as it was. |
2. a. A small structure, esp. a hut, of a shape suggesting a kennel. Usu. colloq. or slang.
| 1898 H. E. Hamblen Gen. Manager's Story 43 I'll have to drop off a flag, or they'll git our doghouse [sc. caboose, on a freight train]. 1959 Manch. Guardian 3 Jan. 5 At the base the staff will visit the ‘greenhouse’ to check the ‘dog-house’. The former is a check station where simulated flights are conducted, the latter is a protuberance that houses instruments on the rocket's otherwise smooth skin. 1961 P. Moyes Sunken Sailor v. 74 A dog-house which gave shelter to the helmsman as he stood at the wheel. 1962 Gloss. Terms Glass Ind. (B.S.I.) 14 Dog-house, a small extension of a glass furnace, into which the batch is fed. 1969 Guardian 1 July 11/6 Doghouse, a small blister on the smooth skin of booster rocket, used to house instruments. |
b. slang. A double-bass.
| 1923 in G. McKnight Eng. Words iv. 45. 1933 H. T. Webster in Forum Dec., When the bull-fiddler plucks the strings he is slapping the doghouse. 1945 L. Shelly Hepcats Jive Talk Dict. 9/2 Doghouse, the bass viol. 1952 B. Ulanov Hist. Jazz in Amer. (1958) xxv. 349 You will not find the language which was carefully attached to jazz in the first spate of general magazine articles about swing—no ‘dog-house’ for bass. |