Meaning
Said of a person, institution, place, or state of affairs that has deteriorated badly, declined into ruin, or fallen into moral decay. Usually 'go to the dogs' or 'gone to the dogs'; the tone is often rueful or complaining. Informal and disapproving, typically a lament about decline rather than a neutral description. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The expression rests on the historically low status of dogs: food and goods unfit for humans were thrown to the dogs, so things 'going to the dogs' implied they were fit only for animals, an idea related to the older 'throw to the dogs' for discarding something worthless. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the figurative sense 'to go to the dogs', meaning to deteriorate or go to ruin, to the early seventeenth century, and Etymonline records it from the 1610s. The exact first quotation sits behind the OED's subscription entry, so the precise 1618 wording is not independently verifiable here, but the early-1600s dating is corroborated across references. One caveat: the OED also records a literal modern sporting sense, attending greyhound race meetings, which is a separate later development and not the source of the deterioration idiom.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- go to the dogs
- going to the dogs
- going to the dogs fast
- let it go to the dogs
Usage Examples
- The old cinema has really gone to the dogs since the new owners took over.
- Critics claimed the newspaper was going to the dogs after rounds of staff cuts.
- If the council stops funding the park, the whole square will go to the dogs within a decade.