dog's bollocks

English

Alternative forms
  • dog's ballocks

Etymology

So named because of the resemblance of the typographical combination of a colon and a hyphen or dash, :—, to the penis and testicles of a dog.

Noun

dog's bollocks pl (plural only)

  1. (typography, punctuation mark, vulgar) The name of the punctuation construction :— used to represent a restful pause in reading a text.[1] The construction itself is proscribed.[2]
  2. (Britain, vulgar slang) Something that is regarded as outstanding.
    That new flat screen TV you bought is the dog's bollocks.

Synonyms

(slang: the best): ballocks, the bee's knees, the business, the cat's pyjamas

References
  1. “dog, n. §dog's bollocks, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, January 2015.
  2. Trask, Larry. "The Colon". University of Sussex.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.