Kennel
name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A house or shelter for a dog.
"– We want to look at the dog kennels. – That's the pet department, second floor."
- 2 The gutter at the edge of a street; a surface drain. obsolete
"Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt / Troubles the silver spring where England drinks […]."
- 3 outbuilding that serves as a shelter for a dog wordnet
- 4 A facility at which dogs are reared or boarded.
"The town dog-catcher operates the kennel for strays."
- 5 A puddle. obsolete
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- 6 The dogs kept at such a facility; a pack of hounds. UK, collective
"A little herd of England's timorous deer, / Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!"
- 7 The hole of a fox or other animal.
- 1 To house or board a dog (or less commonly another animal). transitive
"While we're away our friends will kennel our pet poodle."
- 2 put up in a kennel wordnet
- 3 To lie or lodge; to dwell, as a dog or a fox. intransitive
"Truth's a dog must to kennel;"
- 4 To drive (a fox) to covert in its hole. transitive
"This is the time that the horseman are flung out, not having the cry to lead them to the death. When quadruped animals of the venery or hunting kind are at rest, the stag is said to be harboured, the buck lodged, the fox kennelled, the badger earthed, the otter vented or watched, the hare formed, and the rabbit set."
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"Pochi and Moko are in the kennel, and other dogs are playing in the garden."
Etymology
PIE word *ḱwṓ From Middle English kenel, kenell, borrowed from Anglo-Norman *kenil, northern variant of Old French chenil, from Vulgar Latin *canīle, from Latin canis.
From Middle English canel, from Old French canel, from Latin canālis (“channel; canal”), from Latin canna (“reed, cane”), from Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna, “reed”), from Akkadian 𒄀 (qanû, “reed”), from Sumerian 𒄀𒈾 (gi.na). Cognate with English channel, canal.
Related phrases
More for "kennel"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.