spaniel

Borrowed from Old French espaigneul (modern French épagneul), from Old Occitan espaignol, from Vulgar Latin *Hispāniolus (“Spanish”), from Hispānia (“Spain”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈspænjəl/
• Rhymes: -ænjəl

spaniel (plural spaniels)

1. Any of various small to medium-sized breeds of gun dog having a broad muzzle, long, wavy fur and long ears that hang at the side of the head, bred for flushing and retrieving game.
2. A cringing, fawning person.
   • 1595: Shakespeare, William, The Two Gentlemen of Verona Act IV, Scene II

     Proteus: Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,/The more it grows and fawneth on her still.

spaniel (third-person singular simple present spaniels, present participle spanielling or spanieling, simple past and past participle spanielled or spanieled)

1. To follow loyally or obsequiously, like a spaniel.
   • 1606: Shakespeare, William, The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

     Antony: Do we shake hands.—All come to this!—The hearts / That spaniel'd me at heels, to whom I gave / Their wishes, do discandy, melt their sweets

   • J. Sedgewick (1840) Timon, but not of Athens, page 200: “Always spanielling at the heels of power, the mitred Dignitaries displayed, from first to last, the most rancorous hostility against her.”
   • David S. Bell (2000) Presidential Power in Fifth Republic France, →ISBN, page 30: “Hence Duverger's famous question about de Gaulle's first spanielling Prime Minister makes political ('M. Debré, existe-t-il?'), but not constitutional sense.”
   • Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (2003) The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, →ISBN, page 65:

     The genre which differed from the world in order to advocate a better one - or the genre which spanielled at heel the sensationalist virtual reality world we will now arguably inhabit till the planet dies - had become by 2000, in triumpth or defeat or both, an institution for the telling of story.

• Espinal, Lapines, Nepalis, alpines, pin seal, pineals, pleasin', splenia

spaniel m (plural spaniels)

1. spaniel (any of several dog breeds bred to flush out game)

spaniel m (plural spaniels or spaniel)

1. spaniel