pup
Americannoun
-
pups
plural
-
a young dog; puppy.
-
the young of certain other animals, as the rat, shark, or fur seal.
-
a small plant developing as an offshoot from a mature plant.
verb (used without object)
-
pups,
present (3rd person singular)
-
pupped,
past participle, past
-
pupping
present participle
noun
-
-
a young dog, esp when under one year of age; puppy
-
the young of various other animals, such as the seal
-
-
(of a bitch) pregnant
-
informal a conceited young man (esp in the phrase young pup )
-
to swindle someone by selling him something worthless
-
slang it's early yet
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
pupsimple
-
pupssimple
-
have puppedperfect
-
has puppedperfect
-
am puppingprogressive
-
are puppingprogressive
-
is puppingprogressive
-
have been puppingperfect progressive
-
has been puppingperfect progressive
Past
-
puppedsimple
-
had puppedperfect
-
was puppingprogressive
-
were puppingprogressive
-
had been puppingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of pup
First recorded in 1580–90; shortened variant of puppy
Explanation
Even though you probably think of a young, cuddly dog when you hear the word pup, a pup is the correct name for the young of many different mammals (even the not-so-cuddly porcupine!). When your dog has babies, they're pups, and the same is true of baby wolves. What's more surprising is that so are the baby anteaters in the zoo, as well as the offspring of sea lions, gerbils, and mongooses, among others. Sometimes this noun is also used to mean a young person who's particularly naive or arrogant. Pup comes from puppy, from the Middle French poupée, "doll."
Vocabulary lists containing pup
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Does your precious pup snap and yap at anything that moves?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2026
The arrival marks a milestone for the park, which last welcomed a single capybara pup four years ago.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2026
Their beloved dog died at 16, which the couple taxidermied and mounted in their home so they can still commune with the pup.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
"When I joined police 15 months ago they said to be ready for anything, so I guess this demonstrates that's true!" said Constable Taylor, who escorted the pup.
From Barron's ● Sep. 28, 2026
Miyax clapped, and tossing her head like a pup, crawled in a happy circle.
From "Julie of the Wolves" by Jean Craighead George
My son has been wanting to collect all the pups from the Paw Patrol movie ever since my husband and I took him to see it.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 25, 2026
The bill signing comes as California’s gray wolves had at least 42 pups this year — a record.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2026
Dog owners say that as soon as they pull into the driveway, their pups realize exactly where they’re headed and “start going bonkers,” says Neece.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
When temperatures rise, the females abandon their pups to hunt for food, he explained.
From Barron's ● Jul. 27, 2026
“Oh, ye’ll get there,” says the woman, “but what ye two pups need first is a good sleeping and a good feeding. Any blind man could see that.”
From "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness
"The dog has pupped," said the little old woman; and she shook her man.
From The Path of Life by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
The creature was but pupped the day we left New York, six weeks come Tuesday.
From The Refugees by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I tell you and your friends that it was not wolves that were pupped in the sand of the shaggy Prussian forests when the first Hohenzollern was dropped.
From The Crimson Tide A Novel by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
Let's see; how long have I been a-wearin' of that shirt; oh, I remember, I bought it jist two days afore Five Bob was pupped.
From While the Billy Boils by Henry Lawson
John Lang, Esq., deputy-sheriff of Selkirk, had a female cur big with pups, which on one occasion, when out in the fields attending the cattle, was taken in travail, and pupped on the moor.
From Anecdotes of Dogs by Edward Jesse
The sea lion breeding and pupping season is fast approaching at main rookeries such as the Channel Islands, according to Giancarlo Rulli, associate director of public relations for the Marine Mammal Center.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026
"Although all of the cownose rays in Bermuda to date are females, we also observed small, immature rays suggesting pupping may have recently occurred here," said Ajemian.
From Science Daily ● May 20, 2024
On my drive home, I became intent on documenting harp seals as a face of the climate crisis and have returned to the gulf’s pupping grounds over and over again for the past decade.
From National Geographic ● Jan. 23, 2024
The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 made it safe for the seals to return from Canadian waters, but they didn’t establish pupping colonies until the early 1990s.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 2, 2023
The pupping usually takes place from the sixty-second to the sixty-fourth day; and the process having commenced, from a quarter to three quarters of an hour generally takes place between the production of each puppy.
From The Dog by William Youatt
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
