English

Lap dog in Renoir's Misia Sert

Alternative forms

• lap-dog
• lapdog

Noun

lap dog ‎(plural lap dogs)

1. A small dog, kept as household pet, whose light weight and companionable temperament make it both suited and disposed to spend time resting in the comfort of its master's lap; a dog bred to behave in this manner.
   • 1766, Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, ch. 17:

     A lady loses her muff, her fan, or her lap-dog, and so the silly poet runs home to versify the disaster.

   • 1889, F. Marion Crawford, Greifenstein, ch. 4:

     Frau von Greifenstein had seated herself in a straw chair with her parasol, her fan and her lap-dog, a little toy terrier which was always suffering from some new and unheard-of nervous complaint.

   • 2007 Dec. 1, Harry Hurt III, "Proof That Overscheduled Modern Life Isn’t Fit for a Dog," New York Times (retrieved 5 Dec 2011):

     Steffi is a tricolor King Charles spaniel, an archetypal lap dog and love sponge, barely a foot high and no more than 10 pounds.

2. (idiomatic, by extension) A person who behaves in a servile manner, such as a sycophantic employee or a fawning lover.
   • 1910, E. M. Forster, Howards End, ch. 16:

     As a lady's lap-dog Leonard did not excel. He was not an Italian, still less a Frenchman.

   • 2007 Oct. 28, Dan Bilefsky, "The Special Relationship Tries to Swim the Channel," New York Times (retrieved 5 Dec 2011):

     Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who vacations in Cape Cod, has nevertheless been . . . determined to shed the image of his predecessor, Tony Blair, as America’s lap dog.

Synonyms

• (person who behaves in a servile manner): ass-kisser, sycophant, toady

Derived terms

• lapdoggery

Translations