lap dog

See also: lapdog and lap-dog

English

Lap dog in Renoir's Misia Sert

Alternative forms

• lap-dog, lapdog

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈlæpdɒɡ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

lap dog (plural lap dogs)

1. A small toy dog, kept as household pet, whose light weight and companionable temperament make it both suited and disposed to spend time resting in the comfort of its master's lap; a dog bred to behave in this manner.
   • 1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], chapter XVII, in The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC:

     A lady loses her muff, her fan, or her lap-dog, and so the silly poet runs home to versify the disaster.

   • 1785, William Cowper, “Book I. The Sofa.”, in The Task, a Poem, […], London: […] J[oseph] Johnson;  […], →OCLC, page 3:

     There might ye ſee the pioney ſpread vvide, / The full-blovvn roſe, the ſhepherd and his laſs, / Lap-dog and lambkin vvith black ſtaring eyes, / And parrots vvith tvvin cherries in their beak.

   • 1889, F. Marion Crawford, chapter 4, in Greifenstein:

     Frau von Greifenstein had seated herself in a straw chair with her parasol, her fan and her lap-dog, a little toy terrier which was always suffering from some new and unheard-of nervous complaint.

   • 2007 December 1, Harry Hurt III, “Proof That Overscheduled Modern Life Isn’t Fit for a Dog”, in New York Times, retrieved 5 December 2011:

     Steffi is a tricolor King Charles spaniel, an archetypal lap dog and love sponge, barely a foot high and no more than 10 pounds.

2. (figurative) A person who behaves in a servile manner, such as a sycophantic employee or a fawning lover.

   Synonyms: ass-kisser, bootlicker, sycophant, toady

   • 1908–1910, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, chapter 16, in Howards End, New York, N.Y., London: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons […], published 1910, →OCLC:

     As a lady's lap-dog Leonard did not excel. He was not an Italian, still less a Frenchman.

   • 2007 October 28, Dan Bilefsky, “The special relationship tries to swim the Channel”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who vacations in Cape Cod, has nevertheless been […] determined to shed the image of his predecessor, Tony Blair, as America’s lap dog.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

   • 2014, Charles Seife, “Capture”, in John Brockman, editor, What Should We be Worried About?, HarperCollins, →ISBN, page 36:

     This process, known as "regulatory capture," turns regulators from watchdogs into lapdogs.

Derived terms

• lapdoggery
• lap-doggy

Translations

small dog suited to resting in its master's lap

• Catalan: gos falder m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 寵物狗 / 宠物狗 (chǒngwù gǒu), 小狗 (zh) (xiǎogǒu)

• Dutch: schoothond (nl) m, schoothondje (nl) n
• Esperanto: dorlothundo
• Finnish: sylikoira (fi)
• French: chien-chien (fr) m, bichon (fr) m, chien de salon m, chien de manchon (fr) m
• German: Schoßhund (de) m, Schoßhündin f, Schoßhündchen (de) n
• Greek: σκυλάκι (el) n (skyláki)
• Hindi: छोटा कुत्ता m (choṭā kuttā)
• Hungarian: öleb (hu)
• Icelandic: kjöltuhundur m
• Irish: measán m
• Japanese: ラップ・ドッグ (rappu doggu)
• Latvian: klēpja sunītis (lv) m
• Malay: anjing riba
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: skjødehund (no) m

  Nynorsk: skjødehund m

• Polish: pies pokojowy m, kanapowiec (pl) m
• Portuguese: cão de colo m
• Russian: ко́мнатная соба́чка f (kómnatnaja sobáčka)
• Scottish Gaelic: measan m
• Spanish: perro faldero (es) m, perrito faldero (es) m
• Swedish: knähund (sv) c
• Welsh: ci anwes m, ci arffed m

person who behaves in a servile manner — see sycophant