Great Dane
9
2.6
- noun
- /ɡreɪt deɪn/
:
Gran Danés
- I have a 4-month-old Great Dane, and she's the best inside dog I've ever had!
I don't know, he owns a Great Dane.
- I don't know, he owns a Great Dane.
- Yeah, the greyhound, the Great Dane.
Examples
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I have two teenage sons, a Great Dane, and a very spoiled cat.
Blog text (15) -
My sister-in-law has a Great Dane who tries to sit in her lap!
Blog text (30) -
Does a Great Dane live here?
-
Duke was a Great Dane, one of your great dogs, too.
Academic text (1993) -
The last dog I had was a Great Dane from a rescue center, and he was no trouble.
Blog text (10) -
His best friend is a Great Dane, and he wins every round of roughhousing.
Blog text (28) -
Contrary to what a lot of people think, Great Danes as adults don't eat much at all.
Blog text (8) -
The Great Dane licked his lips and searched the grass for more.
Fiction book (2002) -
After Duke died, we got Prince Atticus Sparton, another 2-year-old merle, through a Great Dane Rescue online.
Blog text (10) -
The Great Dane is known for its impressive height and gentle temperament.
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
great + Dane
This is a proper name for a dog breed and its meaning ('a very large dog') is not derivable from the constituents: 'Dane' normally denotes a person from Denmark and does not indicate an animal, while 'great' alone only suggests size. The lexical composition is therefore idiosyncratic and breed-naming, so a B1 learner who knows the parts would not reliably infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Great Dane may come from old European names for very big dogs that people linked with 'Denmark', so Dane hinted at the country and Great meant very large. That's why Great Dane now means 'a very large dog'.