dog-eared

See also: dogeared and dog eared

English
WOTD – 24 April 2022

Etymology
A book with a dog-eared page (sense 1).

From dog +‎ eared (“having ears (of a specified type)”), modelled after dog’s-ear (obsolete), due to the similarity of their appearance to the folded ears of certain dogs.[1] The word is analysable as dog-ear (“to fold the corner of a book’s page”) +‎ -ed (suffix forming possessional adjectives) (dog-ear is attested in print later than dog-eared).[1]

Pronunciation

Adjective

dog-eared (comparative more dog-eared, superlative most dog-eared)

  1. Of a page in a book or other publication: having its corner folded down, either due to having been read many times, or intentionally as a sort of bookmark.
    By thumbing to the dog-eared pages, she quickly found the items in the catalog she wanted to order.
    The pages in his favourite book were dog-eared from years of reading it at bedtime.
    • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 10, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC:
      There was the huge Italian cassone, with its fantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which he had so often hidden himself as a boy. There the satinwood book-case filled with his dog-eared schoolbooks.
    • 1921, Thomas Sigismund Stribling, “Chapter IV”, in Birthrigt:
      To the uninitiated it may seem strange to behold a Harvard graduate stuck down day after day poring over a pile of dog-eared school-books— third arithmetics, primary grammars, beginners' histories of Tennessee, of the United States, of England; physiology, hygiene. It may seem queer. But when it comes to standing a Wayne County teacher's examination, the specific answers to the specific questions on a dozen old examination slips are worth all the degrees Harvard ever did confer.
    • 2002 September 19, Stephen Moss, “Don’t spare the horses – riders set off for hunt rally”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 9 September 2014:
      Dog-eared tomes litter his sitting room, filled with lovely names – Sailor, Scandal, Saucebox, Starlight, Siren, to take a few from a random page of the directory for 1875.
  2. (figuratively) Ragged, worn-out; also, hackneyed, tired.
    • 1919, Francis Ledwidge, The Complete Poems of Francis Ledwidge, An Old Pain:
      This is the old, old pain come home once more,
      Bent down with answers wild and very lame
      For all my delving in old dog-eared lore
      That drove the Sages mad. And boots the world
      Aught for their wisdom?
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:deteriorated, Thesaurus:hackneyed
    Antonyms: fresh, original; see also Thesaurus:new

Alternative forms

Derived terms
  • dog-ear (verb) (a possible back-formation)

Translations
of a page in a book or other publication: having its corner folded down, either due to having been read many times, or intentionally as a sort of bookmark

See also

References
  1. “dog-eared, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “dog-eared, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading
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