In Mandarin Chinese, 狗 (Pinyin: gǒu 🔊) is a noun that means “dog”. The Dog is one of the twelve-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac and is associated with the earthly branch 戌.
Unfortunately for dog lovers, this word also could be used as an adjective meaning “despicable” or “nasty”. Thus 狗男女 (gǒu nánnǚ) is not a man (男) and a woman (女) innocently walking a dog but a “couple in an illicit love affair”.
According to Uncle Hanzi, 狗 is a phono-semantic compound of phonetic 句 (gōu) and semantic 犭, which itself is a radical form of 犬, archaic or dialectal word for dog.
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