Definitions

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

  • adjective Resembling or characteristic of a puppy.

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

  • adjective Like a puppy.

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

  • adjective With the playful, innocent, eager to please or energetic qualities of a puppy.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective characteristic of a puppy

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Canseco, longhaired still, strong-jawed still, has a kind of puppyish charm and a forthrightness that make you want to root for him.

    unknown title 2009

  • The most notable contributors are an unusually puppyish Yorkshire, who fielded a team that included 10 Yorkshiremen against Nottinghamshire, six of them aged 23 or under.

    New kids on the block stake their claim for England Test place 2011

  • Russert, less puppyish but still in over his head, asked Republican Chairman Michael Steele during MSNBC's coverage, about Steele's party's increasing number of victories.

    Election coverage: Difficult to watch, impossible to look away Hank Stuever 2010

  • His next date was a summer show with the magician David Nixon, and for this appearance he meticulously worked out the characterisation for which he became famous: variously known as Norman or The Gump or Pitkin? an enthusiastic, puppyish little man with a too-tight tweed jacket and crooked cap.

    Sir Norman Wisdom obituary Stephen Dixon 2010

  • She sniffed noses with him, and even condescended to leap about and frisk and play with him in quite puppyish fashion.

    The Battle of the Fangs 2010

  • Perhaps the hysteria that greeted his atypically spectacular goal in the Manchester derby had at its core a release of pent-up prodigy anxiety, a reclutching to the maternal bosom, slot-mouthed with buried disappointment, of our puppyish infant-genius.

    Enjoying the fleeting thrill of fragile prodigies is a national habit | Barney Ronay 2011

  • The jokes worked well, the earnestness of the math student Hal came through as a puppyish eagerness that made it seem like he didn't know most of it was funny, which only added.

    Archive 2009-02-01 kittenpie 2009

  • “We have, in Lebanon, some people who share the dream of the terrorists,” a puppyish twenty-three-year-old named Ahmed al-Masri told me, shouting to be heard over the loudspeakers as we walked in the funeral procession.

    Day of Honey Annia Ciezadlo 2011

  • The jokes worked well, the earnestness of the math student Hal came through as a puppyish eagerness that made it seem like he didn't know most of it was funny, which only added.

    Proof Positive kittenpie 2009

  • Leach could have killed him, but, having evidently filled the measure of his vengeance, he drew away from his prostrate foe, who was whimpering and wailing in a puppyish sort of way, and walked forward.

    Chapter 12 2010

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