dog paddle
2
3.1
- noun
- /dɔg ˈpædəl/
:
estilo de perro
- In an emergency, knowing how to dog paddle can help you stay afloat.
Examples
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During the summer camp, we learned to dog paddle before trying more advanced strokes.
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Just dog paddle out to the middle and drop him down.
-
Then he'd jump in, dog paddle along the edge, water slurping over the side.
Fiction book (1996) -
I swam in my clumsy dog paddle back to the beach, trying to keep my head above the breakers.
Fiction book (1997) -
A year ago, I couldn't pry him loose from the steps in the shallow end; he wouldn't even let me teach him how to dog-paddle—now he was an apprentice fish.
Fiction book (1994) -
After taking swimming lessons, I can confidently dog paddle across the pool.
How Difficult
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'an elementary swimming stroke resembling the way a dog swims' is directly and compositionally derived from 'dog' (manner/source) + 'paddle' (a paddling/moving action), so the sense is predictable from the constituents. This is a transparent denominal compound following a common descriptive pattern found across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer the meaning.
Etymology
Dog paddle comes from how a dog moves its legs like a paddle in the water. Because the human stroke looks the same, the name came to mean 'an easy, beginner swimming stroke'.