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Glite Dictionary
dog town

dog town

7.2
A place with many dogs and shops, parks and services for dog owners
  • noun
translation icon : pueblo para perros
  • There's a big ol' abandoned prairie dog town off the way she's headed.

Examples

  • He was in no way special, looking much like the one I had seen at the dog town, a bit bigger than most, but with the usual pointed snout and graying, piss-yellow fur.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • My neighborhood is known for being a great dog town, with plenty of parks and pet-friendly cafes.

  • During our road trip, we stopped in a charming dog town that had multiple shops catering to dogs and their owners.

  • In this dog town, every block has a dog park, making it a paradise for pet lovers.

Surface Forms

dog town singular
dog towns plural

Morphology

dog + town

The meaning 'a place where dogs are numerous or accommodations for dogs are plentiful' is directly derivable from combining 'dog' (canine) with 'town' (settlement): a noun–noun compound describing a town characterized by dogs. This compounding pattern is common and cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Dog town comes from the simple picture of a place where dogs are everywhere and the town has parks, shops, and people for them. That's why 'dog town' means 'a place with many dogs or many services for dogs'.