curtail dog

plural curtail dogs

1. obsoleteA dog with a docked tail; formerly, the dog of a person not qualified to course, which, by the forest laws, must have its tail cut short, partly as a mark, and partly from a notion that the tail is necessary to a dog in running.

   Oh that I were but King of France for fourscore or a hundred years! By G--, I should whip like curtail-dogs these runaways of Pavia.

   1653, Francis Rabelais [i.e., François Rabelais], translated by [Thomas Urquhart, Peter Anthony Motteux], The Works of Francis Rabelais, Doctor in Physick: Containing Five Books of the Lives, Heroick Deeds, and Sayings of Gargantua, and His Sonne Pantagruel. […], London: […] [Thomas Ratcliffe and Edward Mottershead] for Richard Baddeley, […], →OCLC; republished in volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] Navarre Society […], [1948], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5)

2. broadlyobsoleteA dog not fit for sporting.

   Hope is a curtail dog in some affairs.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]