Dogsbody
noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A person who does menial work, a servant. British, Ireland
"Who chose this face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin."
- 2 a worker who has to do all the unpleasant or boring jobs that no one else wants to do wordnet
- 3 Alternative form of dog's body (“pease pudding”) alt-of, alternative
- 1 To act as a dogsbody, to do menial work
"Perhaps because, having been brought up in all those different countries and languages, and then studying economics of all things for just a year, followed by four years dogsbodying for a haulage company, he had never got any serious reading done."
Example
More examples"Sometimes an intern is just a dogsbody."
Etymology
From dog + -s- + body. 1818, British navy slang (dog's body), originally derogatory reference to unappetizing pease pudding (compare dog's breakfast), as if it were made of mashed dog meat. In 20th century applied to low-ranked sailors, thence menial servants in wider usage.
More for "dogsbody"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.