kennel

From Middle English kenel, kenell, borrowed from Anglo-Norman *kenil, northern variant of Old French chenil, from Vulgar Latin *canīle, from Latin canis.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɛ.nəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnəl

kennel (plural kennels)

1. A house or shelter for a dog.

   Synonym: (US) doghouse

   – We want to look at the dog kennels.
   – That's the pet department, second floor.

   • c. 1515-1516, John Skelton, Againſt venemous tongues enpoyſoned with ſclaunder and falſe detractions &c., published 1568:

     A fals double tunge is more fiers and fell
     Then Cerberus the cur couching in the kenel of hel;
     Wherof hereafter, I thinke for to write,
     Of fals double tunges in the diſpite.

2. A facility at which dogs are reared or boarded.

   Synonyms: pound, shelter

   The town dog-catcher operates the kennel for strays.

   She raises registered Dalmatians at her kennel.

3. (UK, collective) The dogs kept at such a facility; a pack of hounds.

   Synonym: pack

   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, act 4, scene 2:

     A little herd of England's timorous deer, / Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!

   • 1843, Thomas Carlyle, “IX: Working Aristocracy”, in Past and Present, book 3:

     A world of mere Patent-Digesters will soon have nothing to digest: such world ends, and by Law of Nature must end, in ‘over-population;’ in howling universal famine, ‘impossibility,’ and suicidal madness, as of endless dog-kennels run rabid.

4. The hole of a fox or other animal.

   Synonyms: burrow, den

kennel (third-person singular simple present kennels, present participle kenneling or kennelling, simple past and past participle kenneled or kennelled)

1. (transitive) To house or board a dog (or less commonly another animal).

   While we're away our friends will kennel our pet poodle.

2. (intransitive) To lie or lodge; to dwell, as a dog or a fox.
   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, King Lear, act 1, scene 4:

     Truth's a dog must to kennel;

   • 1669, Sir Roger L'Estrange, Fables of Aesop and Other Eminent Mythologists‎^[1], Fable CXLIII: A Dog and a Cock upon a Journey, page 130:

     The Dog Kennell'd in the Body of a Hollow Tree, and the Cock Roosted at night upon the Boughs.

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 29, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 139:

     Below to thy nightly grave ; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last. — Down, dog, and kennel!"

3. (transitive) To drive (a fox) to covert in its hole.
   • 1819, John Mayer, The Sportsman's Directory, or Park and Gamekeeper's Companion:

     This is the time that the horseman are flung out, not having the cry to lead them to the death. When quadruped animals of the venery or hunting kind are at rest, the stag is said to be harboured, the buck lodged, the fox kennelled, the badger earthed, the otter vented or watched, the hare formed, and the rabbit set.

• unkennel

From Middle English canel, from Old French canel, from Latin canālis (“channel; canal”), from Latin canna (“reed, cane”), from Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna, “reed”), from Akkadian 𒄀 (qanû, “reed”), from Sumerian 𒄀𒈾 (gi.na). Cognate with English channel, canal.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɛ.nəl/
• Rhymes: -ɛnəl

kennel (plural kennels)

1. (obsolete) The gutter at the edge of a street; a surface drain.

   Synonym: trough

   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:

     Ay, kennel, puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt / Troubles the silver spring where England drinks […] .

   • 1630, Ios. Exon. [i.e., Joseph Hall of Exeter], edited by R[obert] H[all], Occasionall Meditations, London: […] [Benjamin Alsop and T. Fawcet?] for Nath[aniel] Butter, →OCLC:

     [A] scavenger working in the kennel

   • [1716], [John] Gay, “Book I. Of the Implements for Walking the Streets, and Signs of the Weather”, in Trivia: Or, The Art of Walking the Streets of London, London: […] Bernard Lintott, […], →OCLC, page 11:

     Soon ſhall the Kennels ſvvell vvith rapid Streams, / And ruſh in muddy Torrents to the Thames.

   • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume IV, London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC, page 102:

     [A] chair happening to pass, he laid hold of the opportunity, and by an exertion of his muscles pitched upon the top of the carriage, which was immediately overturned in the kennel […] .

   • 1899, Guy Boothby, Pharos the Egyptian:

     A biting wind whistled through the streets, the pavements were dotted with umbrella-laden figures, the kennels ran like mill-sluices, while the roads were only a succession of lamp-lit puddles through which the wheeled traffic splashed continuously.

2. (obsolete) A puddle.

• (gutter): conduit

• Kennel in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Borrowed from English kennel, from Anglo-Norman kenil, from Old French chenil, from Vulgar Latin *canile.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɛ.nəl/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ken‧nel

kennel m (plural kennels, diminutive kenneltje n)

1. kennel

• hondenhok

• hondenkennel

< Vulgar Latin *canile via Germanic languages, ultimately from Latin canis

• IPA^(key): /ˈkenːel/, [ˈk̟e̞nːe̞l]
• Rhymes: -enːel
• Syllabification^(key): ken‧nel
• Hyphenation^(key): ken‧nel

kennel

1. kennel (facility at which dogs are reared or boarded)

• koiratarha

• “kennel”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[2] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023