shaggy dog story love

shaggy dog story

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A long-winded tale or yarn featuring extensive narration of typically irrelevant details, usually resulting in a pointless or absurd punchline, which is often a pun or Spoonerism on a known catchphrase.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a long rambling joke whose humor derives from its pointlessness

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Uncertain; prob. from one of two jokes, one in which a protracted search for an alleged remarkably shaggy, talking dog ends in the discovery of the dog which, though it can indeed talk, is disappointingly not so shaggy after all; or one in which an even more protracted search for the shaggiest dog in the world ends in the utterly anticlimactic punchline "Now that's a shaggy dog!".

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word shaggy dog story.

Examples

    Sorry, no example sentences found.

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.