Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A powerful dog, often a mastiff or part mastiff, bred to be a watchdog and traditionally kept chained.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A large, fierce kind of dog, in England generally a mastiff, usually kept chained.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A mastiff or other large and fierce dog, usually kept chained or tied up.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A dog that has been tied up; a mastiff or other kind of guard dog.
  • noun Specifically, a type of large, ferocious dog bred by crossing American pit bull terriers with Neapolitan mastiffs.
  • noun obsolete, slang, cant A bailiff or prison guard.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English band-dogge : band, leash, chain; see band + dogge, dog; see dog.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From band +‎ dog.

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Examples

  • The camp and all Christendom shall see that I know how to right myself, and whether I yield ground one inch to the English bandog. —

    The Talisman 2008

  • Each breed has its own distinct personality, and an independent breed like the dal will require stricter training than the disciplined bandog.

    Cloned Dog and Afghan Intelligence 2005

  • This is why I believe there is quite a bit of difference between affenpinscher training and bandog training.

    Cloned Dog and Afghan Intelligence 2005

  • The horsemen spreading themselves along the side of the cover, waited until the keeper entered, leading his bandog, a large blood-hound tied in a leam or band, from which he takes his name.

    Waverley 2004

  • Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all Malthusiasts go hang.

    Ulysses 2003

  • But all the rest heretofore remembered in this chapter there is none more ugly and odious in sight, cruel and fierce in deed, nor untractable in hand, than that which is begotten between the bear and the bandog.

    Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) Thomas Malory Jean Froissart

  • Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all

    Ulysses James Joyce 1911

  • But now I put thee out of door and set the bandog to guard it; thou art locked out though the door be wide open, seest thou?

    Days of the Discoverers L. Lamprey 1910

  • But all the rest heretofore remembered in this chapter there is none more ugly and odious in sight, cruel and fierce in deed, nor untractable in hand, than that which is begotten between the bear and the bandog.

    Of Our English Dogs and Their Qualities. Chapter XV. [1577, Book III., Chapter 13; 1587, Book III., Chapter 7 1909

  • He lived to know that the fulsome adulation of the pitiable bishops whom he had consecrated to serve his own ends could not drown one howl of the conscience which he had transformed into a bandog within him.

    Gathering Clouds: A Tale of the Days of St. Chrysostom 1831-1903 1895

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  • From Thomas Carlyle's The French Revolution

    March 6, 2011