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running dog

 
Dictionary: running dog
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n.
A servile follower or lackey.

[Translation of Chinese (Mandarin) zŏu gŏu : zŏu, running + gŏu, dog.]


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Wordsmith Words: running dog
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(RUN-ing dog)

noun
A servile follower; lackey.

Etymology
From Chinese zougou, from zou (running) + gou (dog), apparently as an allusion to a dog running to follow his or her master's commands. This term was employed in Chinese Communist terminology to refer to someone who was considered subservient to counter-revolutionary interest.

Usage
"We're playing lickspittle running dog to the most tired ideas, and they weren't even ours in the first place." — Zoe Williams; Ditch These Lickspittle Cliches; The Guardian (London, UK); Aug 13, 2002.

"The running dogs will scratch their master's back and he scratches the bootlickers', but normally he soothes them with money." — Abdullah Ahmad; Get Rid of the Running Dogs; New Straits Times (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia); Apr 25, 2001.

Wikipedia: Running Dog
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Running Dog  
"Running Dog" by Don DeLillo.
"Running Dog" by Don DeLillo
Author Don DeLillo
Cover artist Karl Korab
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date 1978
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages 246 (hardback first edition)
ISBN 0-394-50143-8
OCLC Number 3516537
Dewey Decimal 813/.5/4
LC Classification PZ4.D346 Ru PS3554.E4425

Running Dog is a literal translation into English of the Chinese/Korean communist pejorative, 走狗 'Zou Gou', meaning lackey. Its first recorded use in English was in 1937.

Running Dog is also the title of a 1978 novel by Don DeLillo. At its center is a rumored pornographic film of Adolf Hitler, purportedly filmed in his bunker in the climactic days of Berlin's fall. The novel follows a journalist as she tries to penetrate a murky black market of wealthy erotic-art collectors in order to locate the film. The tale grows increasingly wild and violent as she closes in on this bizarre grail.

The book derives its title from a fictional "underground" magazine modeled on Rolling Stone. This publication also featured in Great Jones Street.

References

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=r&p=20

http://wordsmith.org/words/running_dog.html

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wordsmith Words. © 2009 Wordsmith.org. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Running Dog".  Read more