Puppy Definition: Interesting Facts, Test, and Explanations

This adorable word is essential for any dog lover, so let’s make sure you can define a “puppy” perfectly when talking about these lovable creatures!

While “puppy” is a word with one specific meaning, these alternatives and related terms will bring variety into your talks.

Related nouns: dog cat kitten

Synonyms (contextual): pup doggy

Common collocations: young puppy newborn puppy rescue puppy

Boost your English by understanding how to say “puppy” in combination with various parts of speech to create new, meaningful collocations on your own.

With adjectives: playful puppy energetic puppy adorable puppy mischievous puppy

With verbs: raise a puppy train a puppy adopt a puppy walk a puppy

With nouns (noun + noun): puppy training puppy food puppy mill puppy love

These expressions capture the meaning of “puppy” as well as youthful enthusiasm, innocent affection and the irresistible charm in everyday language.

• Puppy love — an innocent, temporary romantic attraction, especially between young teenagers.

  Their relationship is just puppy love. It won’t last long.

• Puppy dog eyes — a sad, pleading facial expression used to get what you want, looking adorable to gain sympathy.

  She gave me puppy dog eyes until I agreed to let her borrow my car.

• Follow someone like a puppy — to follow someone around constantly, be very attached and dependent.

  My little brother follows me around like a puppy wherever I go.

Now it’s your turn to demonstrate what you’ve learned. Complete these exercises to solidify your vocabulary mastery!

Learn how to spell “puppy” properly in German, French and Spanish as well as pronounce it to broaden your linguistic horizons.

Puppies are not only adorable but they are also astonishing animals that go through different developmental phases and have surprising abilities that are still being investigated by science!

• Puppies are born deaf, blind and toothless.

  For the first 10-14 days, their eyes won’t open and their ears won’t function. Also, they have no teeth. They will depend on their mother for everything: warmth, food and safety during this period and only touch and smell will be their senses.

• The “puppy phase” determines adult behavior.

  The essential time of socialization for puppies is the 3-14 week period. Normally, puppies meeting various humans, animals and having different experiences with sounds and places during the early stage grow up to be friendly and sure of themselves as adults.

• Puppies can start learning commands at 7-8 weeks.

  During this time, their brains are very open to new experiences and thus positive reinforcement training is highly effective. Yet, that training should be done in short periods (5-10 minutes) because of the puppies’ limited attention spans.

Take note of the experiences and opinions that have been expressed by these people regarding the “puppies” and the happiness that they so easily spread among people.