dog Latin

American  

noun

1. mongrel or spurious Latin.

2. a jargon imitating Latin.

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dog Latin British  

noun

1. spurious or incorrect Latin

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Etymology

Origin of dog Latin

First recorded in 1760–70

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

dog Latin

No hotch-potch here of dog Latin and Levantine Greek, but plain straight English, cool and fresh in the mouth.

From England by Fox, Frank, Sir

His precise, curial style was easily victorious over the Jesuit's dog Latin, and his expressive German, with his pithy Lutheranisms, was more than a match for the general's Platt-Deutsch dialect.

From Pretty Michal by Jókai, Mór

It is not dog Latin, but Latin ingeniously italianized, or rather Italian, even Mantuan, latinized.

From Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 1 by Motteux, Peter Anthony

The wit is not enough to carry on the joke through 108 letters, carefully composed in Teutonic dog Latin by the best Latinists north of the Brenner.

From Lectures on Modern history by Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, Baron

The dog Latin of the Middle Ages had a reason for its creation of the verb denasare.

From The Man Who Laughs by Hugo, Victor