dogie. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

dogie

SYLLABICATION:	do·gie
PRONUNCIATION:	dg
VARIANT FORMS:	also do·gy
NOUN:	Inflected forms: pl. do·gies Western U.S. A stray or motherless calf.
ETYMOLOGY:	Origin unknown.
REGIONAL NOTE:	In the language of the American West, a motherless calf is known as a dogie. In Western Words Ramon F. Adams gives one possible etymology for dogie, whose origin is unknown. During the 1880s, when a series of harsh winters left large numbers of orphaned calves, the little calves, weaned too early, were unable to digest coarse range grass, and their swollen bellies “very much resembled a batch of sourdough carried in a sack.” Such a calf was referred to as dough-guts. The term, altered to dogie according to Adams, “has been used ever since throughout cattleland to refer to a pot-gutted orphan calf.” Another possibility is that dogie is an alteration of Spanish dogal, “lariat.” Still another is that it is simply a variant pronunciation of doggie.


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.