Where does dog come from?

Dog, man’s faithful friend, a creature whose ancestors were wolves, has a name in English which seems to have come from nowhere… well, from dogca, but where did that come from? The original four-legged friend was called a hound in English… but dogca/dog arrived and displaced it. Maybe it means muscled, powerful, and described a particular breed of dog, but it has no equivalent in other languages.

In Latin languages it is chien/chen/cano/câine/can/qen (French, Haitian, Italian, Romanian, Gallicean, Albanian). In Scandinavian and Germanic languages it approximates hound – hund/hond/hundur (German/Danish/Norwegian/Swedish, Dutch/Africaans, Icelandic… there are similar words in Slav languages which begin with ‘p’ and there are other languages which are totally unlike any other which have their own words… but where does ‘dog’ come from?

As you may imagine, since dogs are so integral and integrated to many human homes and work, there are plenty of phrases and sayings attached to them, for example:

a real dog – unattractive, ugly (usually,unfortunately a woman)
dog watch
go to the dogs – go down hill, worn out, worn down
lucky dog, sly dog – lucky, very lucky
dog’s life – easy life
you dog – derogatory
dog tag
dirty dog
dog eat dog
dog – a tool or device for holding, gripping, or fastening something, sometimes with a tooth-like projections
fire dog – metal support for logs in a fireplace
dog-eared – worn book
hot dog
underdog
my dogs are barking – my feet hurt!
dog collar
put on the dog – get dressed up