Dugout
/ˈdʌɡ.aʊt/noun
A shelter or enclosure dug into the ground, or a boat or baseball bench made by digging out a space.
Did you know?The word is built from the plain past tense of *dig* plus *out*, and its earliest sense was a hidden shelter or boat hollowed from a log—proof that everyday English can still carry the memory of survival.
Etymological Timeline
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*dheigh-
“to form, mold, or knead; later developments in Germanic also gave words for making or shaping earthworks”
Old English
OE
dīc
“ditch, trench, or embankment”
Old English
OE
dīgan
“to dig”
Middle English
ME
duggen + out
“dug out; excavated or hollowed out”
18th–19th Century
English
dugout
“a shelter, canoe, or boat hollowed out of a log or ground”
Modern English
English
dugout
“a recessed shelter, especially in baseball, or a boat hollowed from a log”