lap dog
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English
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Misia_Sert_by_Renoir.jpg/220px-Misia_Sert_by_Renoir.jpg)
Alternative forms
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈlæpdɒɡ/
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
- (cynology) 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 17, in The Vicar of Wakefield:
- A lady loses her muff, her fan, or her lap-dog, and so the silly poet runs home to versify the disaster.
- 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.
- (idiomatic, by extension) 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 New York Times, retrieved 5 December 2011:
- 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.
Derived terms
Translations
small dog suited to resting in its master's lap
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person who behaves in a servile manner — see sycophant