狗
gǒu
In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.
A dog, whether a pet or a working animal. The measure word is 只: 一只狗 'a dog'; a puppy is 小狗. Calling a person a dog is a strong insult in Chinese.
Con chó, nuôi làm bạn hay để giữ nhà. Lượng từ là 只: 一只狗 (một con chó); chó con là 小狗. Gọi ai là chó là một lời chửi rất nặng.
NounRegister: neutral
Examples
Editorial example (illustrative, not a corpus attestation) — awaiting a native-speaker check
Sources & notes
Hán-Việt bridge batch 064 (2026-11-14). Headword, Traditional form and pinyin checked against CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) source ↗ · Hán-Việt reading: Unihan kVietnamese source ↗ · No Vietnamese entry is linked as its twin; the Hán-Việt reading is given character by character. Definition, literal gloss and example sentence are original; the example has not had a native-speaker check yet.
Common questions
What does “狗” mean?
A dog, whether a pet or a working animal. The measure word is 只: 一只狗 'a dog'; a puppy is 小狗. Calling a person a dog is a strong insult in Chinese.
Is “狗” formal or informal?
狗 is generally neutral.