Dog-ear
//ˈdɒɡɪə// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The folded corner of the page of a book or other publication, either due to having been read many times or intentionally as a sort of bookmark.
- 2 a corner of a page turned down to mark your place wordnet
Verb
- 1 To fold (the corner of the page of a book or other publication). transitive
"His eyes went to his book and stayed there long enough to finish a paragraph. He dog-eared it and put it down."
Example
More examples"His eyes went to his book and stayed there long enough to finish a paragraph. He dog-eared it and put it down."
Etymology
The noun is a variant of dog's-ear, from dog + -’s + ear, due to the similarity of their appearance to the folded ears of certain dogs. The verb is either: * directly from dog + ear; * a back-formation from dog-eared; or * a variant of dog's-ear (verb).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.