Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One who prevents others from enjoying what one has no use for oneself.
Wiktionary
- n. One who denies others what he cannot use himself.
WordNet 3.0
- n. someone who prevents you from enjoying something that they themselves have no need for
Etymologies
- From a fable about a dog preventing other animals from eating the hay in a manger, even though as a carnivore he could not eat it himself. (Wiktionary)
- From a fable in which a dog prevented an ox from eating hay he did not want himself. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
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Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dog in the manger’.
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metaphoric references to dogs
As an ongoing part of my project, Dogs in Metaphor and Idiom, Illustrated, (www.metaphordogs.org) I am continually adding terms. If you know a term that fi...
dog, alpha male, at bay, bark, bird dog, bitch, bitchin, bloodhound, bulldog, canaille, canines, cerberus and 131 more...
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Idioms and Phrases
hack someone off, scrape the bottom..., haul over the coals, rake over the coals, have a thin time, down one's alley, up one's alley, shoot the bull, bite the bullet, up the creek, cudgel one' brains, plain as a pikestaff and 156 more...
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That's right, another list
muck-a-muck, ipse dixit, solipsism, anticlinal, analogical, amoral, alogical, synclinal, disinclined, iconological, studly, flitch and 179 more...
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lil_grammar_nazi's list
Main list
acerbic, spiteful, vindictive, curmudgeon, dog in the manger, pious, histrionic, unprecedented, bumptious, abscond, abject, accost and 161 more...
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just like that
Tweets
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amacleod03 One who selfishly hoards something that he or she does not personally need or use.
The Oxford English Dictionary specifically names such a person as “churlish�? and says it's been in use since the 16th century. This reference plays on the stereotype of dogs being selfish, which is as prominent as the one of their being selfless. The phrase comes from one of Æsop's fables. “A dog lay in a manger, and by his growling and snapping prevented the oxen from eating the hay which had been placed for them. ‘What a selfish dog!’ said one of them to his companions, ‘He cannot eat the hay himself, and yet refuses to allow those to eat who can.’�? Jul 26, 2009