lie doggo

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

lie doggo (third-person singular simple present lies doggo, present participle lying doggo, simple past lay doggo, past participle lain doggo)

1. (slang) To lie still and quiet in order to avoid detection.
   • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “ch. 15”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:

     "Do you think he's done something that we don't know about, and is lying doggo on account of the police?"

   • 1924, Rudyard Kipling, The Janeites:

     ... if we lay doggo where we was, Jerry might miss us ...

   • 1946, Rebecca West, “Greenhouse with Cyclamens I,”, in A Train of Powder,, pages 56–7:

     They had tricked and turned and doubled on their tracks and lain doggo at the right time all their lives, which their white hairs showed had not been brief; and they had done it this time too.

   • 1984 December 17, Craig Brown, “Lucan Everywhere”, in New York, volume 17, number 50, →ISSN, page 28:

     "I will lie doggo for a bit," wrote the seventh earl of Lucan to a family friend shortly after he had murdered his children's nanny, mistaking her, in the dark, for his wife. That was ten years ago, and the earl — dead or alive — has lain doggo ever since.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 710:

     We appreciate your need to lie doggo for a bit.

Synonyms

• lie low

Translations

lie still and quiet

• Russian: затаи́ться (ru) n or pf (zataítʹsja), зале́чь на дно pf (zaléčʹ na dno)