adj. and adv. (colloquial).—Mischievous; troublesome; of little account; merry; fast: as A SAD DOG = (1) ‘a wicked debauched fellow’ (GROSE), and (2) a playful reproach.
1706. FARQUHAR, The Recruiting Officer, iii. 2. Syl. … you are an ignorant, pretending, impudent coxcomb. Braz. Ay, ay, a SAD DOG.
1710–3. SWIFT, The Journal to Stella [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 150. The word SAD is much used; a man is a SAD DOG; sour grapes are SAD things].
1713. STEELE, Spectator, No. 448. Then does he begin to call himself the SADDEST fellow, in disappointing so many places.
1726. VANBRUGH, The Provoked Husband, iii. 1. When a SAD wrong word is rising just to one’s tongue’s end, I give a great gulp, and swallow it.
1748. SMOLLETT, Roderick Random, xvi. I suppose you think me a SAD DOG … I … confess that appearances are against me.
1759. GOLDSMITH, The Bee, No. 2. You have always been a SAD DOG—you’ll never come to good, you’ll never be rich.
1771. HENRY MACKENZIE, The Man of Feeling, xiv. I have been told as how London is a SAD place.
1836. DICKENS, Sketches by Boz, vii. Mr. Jones used to poke him in the ribs, and tell him he had been a SAD DOG in his time.
