Dictionary

dog paddle en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio

Meanings

1. A swimming stroke in the style of a dog swimming.
   • The self-taught small boy usually begins with the so-called “dog-paddle.” There his instinct is thoroughly right, and the method is especially valuable for children too young to do much formal practicing. Dog-paddle is the most natural of all strokes, and therefore the easiest of all to learn. 1908 April, Edwin T. Brewster, “The Bathtub Swimming School”, in Good Housekeeping, volume 46, page 387:
   • He would still go down for his daily dog paddle in the faculty swimming pool, and would still nibble the raisins he likes to keep in his briefcase. 1949 April 23, “Exit Growling”, in Time:

Forms

Translations (13)

sv hundsim (swimming stroke) · bg кучешката (swimming stroke) · nan-hbl 狗仔泅 (swimming stroke) · da hundesvømning (swimming stroke) · cmn 狗刨 (swimming stroke) · pt cachorrinho (swimming stroke) · cs čubička (swimming stroke) · mi kau kiore (swimming stroke) · cmn 狗爬式游泳 (swimming stroke) · yue 狗仔式 (swimming stroke) · fi koiranuinti (swimming stroke) · fi koira (swimming stroke) · pl piesek (swimming stroke)

dog paddle en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio

Meanings

1. To swim in dog paddle style.
   • Last week, as the latest escapee dog paddled his way to freedom across the Spandau ship canal, the Grepos machine-pistoled him down with seven slugs. Sinking in mid stream, he became the 58th victim—and the first dog—to die since 1961 while trying to enter West Berlin from the East German democratic workers’ paradise. 1965 April 23, “Dream of a Bigger Bone”, in Time:
   • They were of course distantly related to Eliza and me, too, since our Vermont ancestors had once been content to dogpaddle endlessly, so to speak, in the same tiny genetic pool. 1976, Kurt Vonnegut, chapter 2, in Slapstick, Delacorte Press, page 31:
   • He pretended that an alligator was behind him and swam desperately. He passed one spot and then, laboriously, another, dog-paddling. 1938, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, chapter 11, in The Yearling:

Forms