puppy fat
- noun
- /ˈpʌpi fæṭ/
:
grasa infantil
- When I was younger, my friends teased me about my puppy fat, but I knew it would go away eventually.
Examples
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It's common for kids to lose their puppy fat as they enter their teenage years.
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Many children have a little puppy fat that makes them look cute and chubby.
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When the kid is ten, it's no longer puppy fat.
Blog text (28)
How Chubby
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun combines the literal word 'fat' with 'puppy' used metaphorically to signal youth/childhood, so a learner who knows both words can reasonably infer it refers to the harmless, temporary plumpness of young children. However, the animal-to-human metaphor and the conventional sense that this fat disappears with age require cultural/phraseological knowledge beyond pure composition, so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
Puppy fat comes from the picture of young dogs that are soft and a little chubby, with puppy and fat giving a clear image. It means the small, healthy layer of fat on children that is 'temporary' and usually goes away as they grow older.