Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
hearing dog

hearing dog

3.4
A dog trained to alert a person who cannot hear to important sounds like a doorbell or alarm
  • noun
  • /ˈhɪrɪŋ dɔɡ/
translation icon : perro de asistencia auditiva

Examples

  • Maybe a hearing dog will lift her spirits and help ease her into the adjustment.

    Blog text (23)

  • Orbit demonstrates how a hearing dog alerts its owner to important sounds like doorbells and sirens.

  • A hearing dog signals its deaf owner when the baby starts crying at night.

  • She hopes that adopting a hearing dog will help her feel more secure at home.

Synonyms

working dog
vshearing dog
3 2.5

A dog raised and trained to do jobs like guiding or herding animals

is trained to alert deaf or hard of hearing people to specific sounds

Surface Forms

hearing dog singular
hearing dogs plural

Morphology

hearing + dog

The meaning is directly compositional: 'hearing' (relating to auditory perception) + 'dog' yields a dog associated with hearing tasks, so a learner who knows both words can infer it is a dog trained to signal sounds. The adjective-noun pattern 'X dog' (cf. 'guide dog', 'police dog') is a common, cross-linguistic way to mark a dog's function, supporting full transparency for B1 learners.

Etymology

The term hearing dog comes from the picture of a trained dog that uses its strong hearing to notice sounds like a doorbell or alarm and then 'alerts' its owner. So, hearing dog means 'a dog trained to help someone who is deaf or hard of hearing'.