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I'm a bit confused as to why some thesauruses, e.g. Oxford Dictionaries, state that puppy is a synonym of dog. To me they are related but not a synonym.

dog

  1. hound, canine, mongrel, cur, tyke;
    male dog;
    bitch, pup, puppy, whelp
    informal: doggy, pooch, mutt
    Australian informal: mong, bitzer
    ENGLISH THESAURUS

Can anyone shed some light on the matter please?

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    Are you sure you know what a thesaurus offers? It is not usually exact synonyms.
    – Tim Lymington
    Jan 11, 2016 at 12:33
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    A puppy is also a dog, just a smaller and younger version. I imagine puppy is also synonymous with off-spring But that doesn't mean I call a baby bear a puppy.
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jan 11, 2016 at 12:40
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    My 6th grade teacher pounded into my head the fact that a synonym is a word that means ALMOST the same as the word it's supposedly a synonym of.
    – Hot Licks
    Jan 11, 2016 at 13:23
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    To be exact, "puppy" is a hyponym and "dog" is the corresponding hypernym. Canine in turn is the hypernym of dog (wolves are also canines). Note that not all dogs are puppies, but neither are all dogs bitches. IOW, the list given is anything but an exact list of synonyms.
    – MSalters
    Jan 11, 2016 at 15:06
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    How come your question doesn't also ask about "bitch" and "whelp" that are listed right next to "puppy" and are (in my experience) rarely, if ever, used to refer to just any dog (e.g., I never hear "bitch" used for a male dog)? On the other hand, I hear people calling their fully grown dog their "puppy" all the time.
    – Todd Wilcox
    Jan 11, 2016 at 16:51

4 Answers 4

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Synonyms aren't only words that mean the exact same thing. They may be words that mean approximately the same thing. Moreover, many do call their adult dogs their "puppy," just like many call other adults their "baby." Just as "baby" can refer to an adult person, so also can "puppy" refer to an adult dog.

Also, you should note that the entry doesn't cite those words as "synonyms." Rather, it says they come from a thesaurus. A thesaurus provides words of similar meaning whose closeness in exact meaning tend to decrease as one moves down a list. If thesauruses only provided words that meant EXACTLY the same thing, they wouldn't be very helpful as we often use them to try to home in on a better word, one that more exactly says what we mean to say.

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    @TimLymington : Thanks. I corrected the typo. I also went ahead and corrected a poor construction I had made: just as, so also.
    – Benjamin Harman
    Jan 11, 2016 at 17:40
  • @TimLymington -- About "homing in," the question in question dates back to 2011. We are nearly 5 years into the future and I'm being persuaded to believe that "hone in" is now the more widely accepted linguistic (speaking for American English here...)
    – Jimmy Huch
    Jan 11, 2016 at 23:13
  • My thesaurus lists the words alphabetically, not in decreasing order of closeness.
    – CJ Dennis
    Jan 12, 2016 at 8:03
  • @CJ Dennis : I obviously can't speak for all thesauruses, which is why the word "tend." Thesaurus.com, Collins Dictionary, OED, and many, many others do not alphabetize entries under a given definition of a word but sort them by the strength of their similarity to that definition.
    – Benjamin Harman
    Jan 12, 2016 at 13:20
  • @BenjaminHarman I just wanted to point out that if someone finds a thesaurus with alphabetical entries they shouldn't be too surprised.
    – CJ Dennis
    Jan 12, 2016 at 13:53
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Because it's useful to list them as such.

Puppy is a hyponym of dog (a different hyponym in early-modern and contemporary use), not a perfect synonym, but then you already know a perfect word to use when dog matches precisely; dog.

A thesaurus is useful precisely because it will be a bit "fuzzy" in the synonyms it lists, and so has a chance of providing a better word for your purposes than the one you looked up. Hyponyms and hypernyms are both candidates for this.

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If you are asking why the term puppy is used to refer to a small, young dog, the answer is in its etymology, probably from French "puppet" (toy):

  • late 15c., "woman's small pet dog," of uncertain origin but likely from Middle French poupée "doll, toy" (see puppet) . Meaning shifted from "toy dog" to "young dog" (1590s), replacing Middle English whelp. In early use in English puppet and puppy were not always distinct from each other. Also used about that time in sense of "vain young man." Puppy-dog first attested 1590s (in Shakespeare, puppi-dogges). (Etymonline)

enter image description here A puppy.

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    If you quote explanations of etymology you should always indicate the source.
    – rogermue
    Jan 11, 2016 at 13:16
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    Lol at the picture inclusion. Who doesn't want to see a picture of a puppy.
    – user77261
    Jan 11, 2016 at 14:59
  • See also, puppy love.
    – Tim Ward
    Jan 11, 2016 at 17:04
  • "If you are asking why the term puppy is used to refer to a small, young dog". The asker isn't. They're asking whether "puppy" and "dog" are synonyms.
    – David Richerby
    Jan 12, 2016 at 3:45
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    @DavidRicherby Originally the OP did ask "why, but the title was edited, and it changed to a simple "yes" or "no" question BUT there's also this afterthought: Can anyone shed some light on the matter please? Now, how would you interpret that request?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Jan 12, 2016 at 11:56
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Every puppy is a dog. Some dogs (but not all) are puppies.

The same way every woman is a human. Some (but not all) humans are women.

So puppy might be a synonym to a dog (not in all cases, though).

I got a new dog today. It's so cute!

If and only if said dog is young, one might rephrase:

I got a new puppy today. It's so cute!

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  • @Mari-LouA And to defend my dignity a bit more I want to point out that I used woman because I wished to add to the variety of gender references. And a generic picture of a human tends to be a man. The intention was good. The delivery clumsy. I appreciate the civil tone of the remark.
    – Konrad Viltersten
    Jan 12, 2016 at 12:20
  • I agree with your answer -- and I like the logic of it. +1 Sounds like an interesting exchange with Mari-LouA.
    – Richard Kayser
    Nov 2, 2016 at 3:33
  • @RichardKayser I'm not sure if you can see all the conversation and editions but basically it was about a very nifty correlation between a female human and a female dog. It was very unfortunate and I'm a bit ashamed that I missed it. I mean by no means that women are bitches. Some are. That's true. But so are quite a few men. And that property is beyond the point here. I should have used mare but it's not certain that the OP knows it's a girl horsie. Still, a bit funny in retrospective. Thanks for the kind words.
    – Konrad Viltersten
    Nov 2, 2016 at 6:17

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