English

Verb

lie doggo ‎(third-person singular simple present lies doggo, present participle lying doggo, simple past lay doggo, past participle lain doggo)

1. (slang) To lie still and quiet in order to avoid detection.
   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, ch. 15

     "Do you think he's done something that we don't know about, and is lying doggo on account of the police?"

   • 1924, Rudyard Kipling, "The Janeites"

     ... if we lay doggo where we was, Jerry might miss us ...

   • 1946: Rebecca West, "Greenhouse with Cyclamens I," in A Train of Powder, pp. 56-7

     They had tricked and turned and doubled on their tracks and lain doggo at the right time all their lives, which their white hairs showed had not been brief; and they had done it this time too.

   • 1984 December 17, Brown, Craig, “Lucan Everywhere”, in New York, volume 17, number 50, ISSN 0028-7369, page 28:

     "I will lie doggo for a bit," wrote the seventh earl of Lucan to a family friend shortly after he had murdered his children's nanny, mistaking her, in the dark, for his wife. That was ten years ago, and the earl — dead or alive — has lain doggo ever since.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 710:

     We appreciate your need to lie doggo for a bit.

Synonyms

• lie low

Translations