Doghole
noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A place regarded as fit only for dogs: a horrid, mean habitation. derogatory, idiomatic
"But, cou’d you be content to bid adieu / To the dear Play-houſe, and the Players too, / Sweet Country Seats are purchas’d ev’ry where, / With Lands and Gardens, at leſs price, than here / You hire a darkſom Doghole by the year."
- 2 A small, shallow bay or inlet, usually surrounded by high cliffs, that is accessible only by smaller boats.
"Not always this forbidding, some doghole ports like New Haven had safe handling records and managed to load 185 consecutive ships without an incident until the 130 ton Adelaide hit the rocks when a mooring chain broke."
- 3 A type of small schooner designed in the 19th century to navigate in shallow waters and to conduct coastal shipping in and out of doghole ports.
"A far cry from the miserable existance^([sic]) of the common sailor brought about by bucko mates and bible preaching captains on the large ocean-going vessels, life aboard a doghole wasn't for everyone and losing your ship on the rocks or being rolled like a cork on a big wave chased many back to the open sea with an indelible meaning of the expression 'doghole' forever stamped in their minds."
- 4 A mine worked by fewer than fifteen miners, which is small enough that some safety laws do not apply. slang
"They know there are thousands of coal miners desperately in need of work, and they know the doghole operators cannot afford to pay these men union wages."
- 5 A mine worked by fewer than fifteen miners, which is small enough that some safety laws do not apply.; Such a small mine that is dug independently by one or a few miners, often clandestinely and illegally: a bootleg mine. slang
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- 6 An excavated area that acts as an access hole or that connects different parts of a mine.
"The second doghole, driven at 385 feet to one of the pumping units, penetrated a water course, and within a few hours caved material had filled the shaft to 366 feet."
- 7 A tiny, uncomfortable hole or cell, usually too small to stand in, in which prisoners are confined as punishment.
"When they want to punish someone, he is put down in a doghole."
- 8 An underground bolthole dug to hide from enemy soldiers.
"Forcing 160 of the survivors out of their dogholes, they shot 60 of them to death on the spot."
- 9 One of the entrances to a system of prairie dog tunnels.
"Within a week after the volatile drug was placed in the dogholes and the entrances covered up, all but a couple of the animals had been killed."
- 10 A hole that was dug by a dog.
"Considering our present advanced state of culture, and how the Torch of Science has now been brandished and borne about, with more or less effect, for five thousand years and upwards; how, in these times expecially, not only the Torch still burns, and perhaps more fiercely than ever, but innumerable Rush-lights and Sulphur-matches, kindled thereat, are also glancing in every direction, so that not the smallest cranny or doghole in Nature or Art can remain unilluminated,— it might strike the reflective mind with some surprise that hitherto little or nothing of a fundamental character, whether in the way of Philosophy or History, has been written on the subject of Clothes."
- 11 A hole drilled for the placement of a bench dog.
"The most conspicuous addition is the screw- operated tail vise found at the right corner of the bench, which was designed to be used in conjunction with a row of dogholes."
- 1 To work in a doghole mine, especially to manually dig up a vein. slang
"Mostly, these activities are restricted to small tunneling, diggings, and dogholing from which the ore is extracted and sent to small cyanidation plants for gold recovery;"
Example
More examples"But, cou’d you be content to bid adieu / To the dear Play-houſe, and the Players too, / Sweet Country Seats are purchas’d ev’ry where, / With Lands and Gardens, at leſs price, than here / You hire a darkſom Doghole by the year."
Etymology
From Middle English doghole. By surface analysis, dog + hole.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.