gutter dog

plural gutter dogs · alternative gutter-dog · alternative gutterdog

1. derogatoryslangA person of low social rank.

   Before, I was sort of a gutter dog— just do what you have to do.

   2007, A. B. Shani, Susan Albers Mohrman, William A. Pasmore, Bengt Stymne, Niclas Adler, Handbook of Collaborative Management Research, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 502

   4 more examples

   So the starving folk dreamed and dreamed and woke, and cried out curses on them that had waked them, saying, "Plague take the hands that pulled me back to this gutter dog's life !"

   1900, Samuel Rutherford Crockett, Joan of the Sword Hand, Dodd, page 202

   For that I weep not. But thou weepest for a stinking gutter dog. Curse on him that ever thinketh well of thee.

   1917, Michael West, Aucassin and Nicolette, Done from the Old French by Michael West ..., Harrap

   Lying, cheating, whore-mongering Casanova basta! How dare he. HOW DARE HE! Father of her children, faithful husband – or so he had always sworn. She had given him the best years of her life and he was nothing but a rutting gutter dog.

   2012, Jackie Collins, Lucky, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 840

   Clogged steps struck the cobbles as the little boy made his escape up Great Ancoats Street; swearing under his breath, the man threw Pip a furious look. 'You interfering gutter-dog. I'll snuff you out this time, you see if I don't! It's not as though anyone shall miss or mourn a parasite such as you, is it?'

   2018, Emma Hornby, The Orphans of Ardwick, Random House, →ISBN, page 197

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see gutter, dog.

   Her mother tried to persuade her not to keep the dirty gutter dog. 'If you do want a dog, we can have a nice terrier pup specially brought from the city,' she said.

   1947, Narayan Sitaram Phadke, Leaves in the August wind: A Novel with the Indian Upheaval of August 1942 for Its Background, Hind Kitabs, page 50