retriever

Etymology

It is formed from English retrieve + -er,^[2][3][4][5] first as Middle English retriver, from retriven (“to retrieve”).^[6][7] The verb is from Middle English retreven,^[8][4] from the stressed stem of Anglo-Norman retruver and Old French retrover (“to find again”) (modern retrouver),^[2][4][8] formed from re- (“again”) and trover (“to find”).^[8][4][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A hunting dog used to flush out or set up game again, or to find game a second time: 1486, in the Boke of St Albans.^[2][3] Etymonline likewise dates the word to the late 15th century,^[4] and Dictionary.com to 1480–90.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The noun followed the verb retrieve, which in hunting meant first, from the early 15th century, to find game again or flush it out of cover, and only from 1814 to find and bring back game that had been shot.^[2] The old sense of the noun died out in the 17th century;^[2][3] the modern one, a dog of a breed suited to finding and fetching dead or wounded game, is recorded from 1819 in the revised OED,^[2] from 1830 in the 1989 edition and in Etymonline.^[9][4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged still gives as the first sense any dog used or trained to retrieve game, and as the usual one a dog of the breeds developed for it.^[6] A retriever was also a person who recovers something, from 1656,^[2] and in tennis and squash a player who plays from a defensive position, from 1974.^[2] In British prison slang a retriever is an inmate who intimidates others to get drugs they are thought to carry.^[10]

Timeline

• 1486 – a dog used to set up game again (obsolete after 1636).^[2][3]
• 1656 – a person who retrieves or recovers something.^[2] The 1989 edition of the OED dated this sense to 1658.^[9]
• 1819 – a dog of a breed developed to find and bring in dead or wounded game.^[2][3]
• 1974 – in tennis and squash, a defensive player.^[2]
• 1996 – British prison slang, an inmate who intimidates others to get their drugs.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dog of any of several breeds of medium-sized gun dogs with water-resistant coats, bred to find and bring back shot game: The retriever swam out for the duck.^[11][6][2]
2. Any dog used or trained to retrieve game.^[6][2]
3. A person or thing that retrieves or recovers something.^[12][2]
4. In tennis and squash, a player who plays from a defensive position.^[2]
5. (obsolete, 1486–1636) A hunting dog used to flush out game or to find it again.^[2][3]

Word family

• golden retriever
• Labrador retriever
• Chesapeake Bay retriever
• flat-coated retriever
• curly-coated retriever

Related words

• retrieve
• retrieval
• trover

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
8. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ a b Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
11. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin