See dog Latin in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
{
"etymology_text": "The term Dog Latin dates back to at least the 17th century and is thought to derive from the notion of doggerel, a word meaning rough, irregular, or trivial verse. Chambers (1908) suggests that the word reflects the idea of a clumsy, bastardized form of Latin, as if produced by dogs rather than by scholars. The adjective dog in this sense was historically used to indicate something inferior or absurd, paralleling its use in expressions like dog's breakfast or doggerel. The term thus conveys the idea of a humorous or intentionally incorrect imitation of classical Latin.",
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"_dis": "62 38",
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{
"_dis": "65 35",
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{
"_dis": "64 36",
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"_dis": "64 36",
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"_dis": "69 31",
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"_dis": "71 29",
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"ref": "1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 41:",
"text": "Now that walking plants were established facts, the press lost its former tepidity and bathed them in publicity. So a name had to be found for them. Already there were botanists wallowing, after their custom, in polysyllabic dog-Latin and Greek to produce variants on ambulans and pseudopodia, but what the newspapers and the public wanted was something easy on the tongue and not too heavy on the headlines for general use.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"A phrase or jargon that imitates Latin, often by translating English words (or those of other languages) into Latin by conjugating or declining them."
],
"id": "en-dog_Latin-en-name-rGbSsbHo",
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "Canis Latinicus"
},
{
"word": "cod Latin"
},
{
"word": "hog Latin"
},
{
"word": "macaronic Latin"
}
]
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{
"_dis": "8 92",
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"name": "Lexicography",
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"glosses": [
"Poor-quality or erroneous Latin."
],
"id": "en-dog_Latin-en-name-tZMsNnD7",
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"related": [
{
"_dis1": "43 57",
"word": "bog Latin"
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{
"_dis1": "43 57",
"word": "law Latin"
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{
"_dis1": "43 57",
"word": "mock Latin"
},
{
"_dis1": "43 57",
"word": "pig Latin"
},
{
"_dis1": "43 57",
"word": "pseudo-Latinism"
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"translations": [
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "af",
"lang": "Afrikaans",
"lang_code": "af",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"word": "kombuislatyn"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"lang_code": "nl",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "potjeslatijn"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latin macaronique"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latin de cuisine"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"lang_code": "de",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Küchenlatein"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "ga",
"lang": "Irish",
"lang_code": "ga",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Laidin bhacach"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"lang_code": "it",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latino maccheronico"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"raw_tags": [
"used to mean \"swearwords\""
],
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
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],
"word": "łacina kuchenna"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"lang_code": "ru",
"note": "кухонная латы́нь (kuxonnaja latýnʹ, literally “kitchen Latin”)",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latín macarrónico"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latinajo"
},
{
"_dis1": "27 73",
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"lang_code": "sv",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"neuter"
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]
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Doggerel",
"Latin"
],
"word": "dog Latin"
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"etymology_text": "The term Dog Latin dates back to at least the 17th century and is thought to derive from the notion of doggerel, a word meaning rough, irregular, or trivial verse. Chambers (1908) suggests that the word reflects the idea of a clumsy, bastardized form of Latin, as if produced by dogs rather than by scholars. The adjective dog in this sense was historically used to indicate something inferior or absurd, paralleling its use in expressions like dog's breakfast or doggerel. The term thus conveys the idea of a humorous or intentionally incorrect imitation of classical Latin.",
"forms": [
{
"form": "Dog Latin",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
},
{
"form": "dog latin",
"tags": [
"alternative"
]
}
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"expansion": "dog Latin",
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}
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"lang": "English",
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"pos": "name",
"related": [
{
"word": "bog Latin"
},
{
"word": "law Latin"
},
{
"word": "mock Latin"
},
{
"word": "pig Latin"
},
{
"word": "pseudo-Latinism"
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"ref": "1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 41:",
"text": "Now that walking plants were established facts, the press lost its former tepidity and bathed them in publicity. So a name had to be found for them. Already there were botanists wallowing, after their custom, in polysyllabic dog-Latin and Greek to produce variants on ambulans and pseudopodia, but what the newspapers and the public wanted was something easy on the tongue and not too heavy on the headlines for general use.",
"type": "quotation"
}
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"glosses": [
"A phrase or jargon that imitates Latin, often by translating English words (or those of other languages) into Latin by conjugating or declining them."
],
"synonyms": [
{
"word": "Canis Latinicus"
},
{
"word": "cod Latin"
},
{
"word": "hog Latin"
},
{
"word": "macaronic Latin"
}
]
},
{
"glosses": [
"Poor-quality or erroneous Latin."
],
"links": [
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[
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],
"translations": [
{
"code": "af",
"lang": "Afrikaans",
"lang_code": "af",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"word": "kombuislatyn"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"lang_code": "nl",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "potjeslatijn"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latin macaronique"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"lang_code": "fr",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latin de cuisine"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"lang_code": "de",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "Küchenlatein"
},
{
"code": "ga",
"lang": "Irish",
"lang_code": "ga",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"feminine"
],
"word": "Laidin bhacach"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"lang_code": "it",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latino maccheronico"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"lang_code": "pl",
"raw_tags": [
"used to mean \"swearwords\""
],
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"also",
"feminine"
],
"word": "łacina kuchenna"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"lang_code": "ru",
"note": "кухонная латы́нь (kuxonnaja latýnʹ, literally “kitchen Latin”)",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latín macarrónico"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"lang_code": "es",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "latinajo"
},
{
"code": "sv",
"lang": "Swedish",
"lang_code": "sv",
"sense": "bad, erroneous Latin",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "kökslatin"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"Doggerel",
"Latin"
],
"word": "dog Latin"
}
Download raw JSONL data for dog Latin meaning in English (4.4kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-03-25 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-03-03 using wiktextract (05c257f and 9d9a410). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.