dog in the hunt
- idiom
- Informal
:
interesado
- Without real responsibility, she didn't have a dog in the hunt for the decision.
Examples
-
He finally felt like a dog in the hunt after years of being sidelined at work.
-
Even though she wasn't part of the negotiations, she felt like she had a dog in the hunt because of the project's impact on her community.
-
Even if you don't have a dog in the hunt, it's hard not to get caught up in the excitement.
-
Every dog in the hunt knows the stakes.
-
He is a dog in the hunt for the championship title!
-
After joining the committee, he finally had a dog in the hunt regarding the future of the local park.
-
As a long-time fan, she truly had a dog in the hunt when it came to the outcome of the championship game.
Synonyms
179
1.8
A person who looks for something they want, often as a hobby or job
15
4.2
A person who chases someone or tries hard to get something
How Involved
49
4.1
- Informal
43
3.6
87
3.9
84
3.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
Knowing the constituents 'in' and 'hunt' makes the core idea of being 'in a hunt' (i.e. participating or competing) fairly clear, and adding 'dog' as the participant yields a plausible meaning of someone involved. However, the expression relies on a metaphorical mapping (a canine participant standing for a person with a stake) and is not a highly conventional, fully compositional pattern, so learners could misread it literally or fail to generalize without exposure.
Etymology
Dog in the hunt may come from old hunting scenes, where a bold dog running after the game was truly part of the chase. If the dog was in the hunt, it had a real interest in what happened, so the phrase now means 'someone who is involved or has a stake' in a situation.