kennel

plural kennels

1. A house or shelter for a dog.

   – We want to look at the dog kennels. – That's the pet department, second floor.

   1 more example

   A fals double tunge is more fiers and fell Then Cerberus the cur couching in the kenel of hel; Wherof hereafter, I thinke for to write, Of fals double tunges in the diſpite.

   c. 1515-1516, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c., published 1568

   Synonyms: doghouse

2. A facility at which dogs are reared or boarded.

   She raises registered Dalmatians at her kennel.

   1 more example

   The town dog-catcher operates the kennel for strays.

   Synonyms: pound, shelter

   1. UKcollectiveThe dogs kept at a dog-boarding facility; a pack of hounds.

      A little herd of England's timorous deer, / Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!

      1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, act 4, scene 2

      1 more example

      A world of mere Patent-Digesters will soon have nothing to digest: such world ends, and by Law of Nature must end, in ‘over-population;’ in howling universal famine, ‘impossibility,’ and suicidal madness, as of endless dog-kennels run rabid.

      1843, Thomas Carlyle, “IX: Working Aristocracy”, in Past and Present, book 3

      Synonyms: pound, shelter, pack

3. The hole of a fox or other animal.

   Synonyms: burrow, den

present singular third person kennels · US participle present kenneling · UK participle present kennelling · US participle past kenneled · US past kenneled · UK participle past kennelled · UK past kennelled

1. transitiveTo house or board a dog (or less commonly another animal).

   While we're away our friends will kennel our pet poodle.

2. intransitiveTo lie or lodge; to dwell, as a dog or a fox.

   Truth's a dog must to kennel;

   c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, King Lear, act 1, scene 4

   2 more examples

   The Dog Kennell'd in the Body of a Hollow Tree, and the Cock Roosted at night upon the Boughs.

   1669, Sir Roger L'Estrange, Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists, Fable CXLIII: A Dog and a Cock upon a Journey, page 130

   Below to thy nightly grave ; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last. — Down, dog, and kennel!"

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 29, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 139

3. transitiveTo drive (a fox) to covert in its hole.

   1 more example

   This is the time that the horseman are flung out, not having the cry to lead them to the death. When quadruped animals of the venery or hunting kind are at rest, the stag is said to be harboured, the buck lodged, the fox kennelled, the badger earthed, the otter vented or watched, the hare formed, and the rabbit set.

   1819, John Mayer, The Sportsman's Directory, or Park and Gamekeeper's Companion

plural kennels

1. obsoleteThe gutter at the edge of a street; a surface drain.

   [A] scavenger working in the kennel

   1630, Ios. Exon. [i.e., Joseph Hall of Exeter], edited by R[obert] H[all], Occasionall Meditations, London: […] [Benjamin Alsop and T. Fawcet?] for Nath[aniel] Butter, →OCLC

   4 more examples

   Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt / Troubles the silver spring where England drinks […].

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]

   Soon ſhall the Kennels ſvvell vvith rapid Streams, / And ruſh in muddy Torrents to the Thames.

   [1716], [John] Gay, “Book I. Of the Implements for Walking the Streets, and Signs of the Weather”, in Trivia: Or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London, London: […] Bernard Lintott, […], →OCLC, page 11

   [A] chair happening to pass, he laid hold of the opportunity, and by an exertion of his muscles pitched upon the top of the carriage, which was immediately overturned in the kennel […].

   1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 102

   A biting wind whistled through the streets, the pavements were dotted with umbrella-laden figures, the kennels ran like mill-sluices, while the roads were only a succession of lamp-lit puddles through which the wheeled traffic splashed continuously.

   1899, Guy Boothby, Pharos the Egyptian

   Synonyms: trough

2. obsoleteA puddle.

plural Kennels

1. A surname.