The phrase “dog eat dog” refers to a ruthless mentality where causing harm to others is acceptable to achieve a goal. It is often used to describe challenging social situations, implying that all competitors are willing to fight to survive and thrive. This view justifies selfish and ruthless actions, with potential reward and risk of repercussion being the real deciding factors. The phrase may be a distortion of an older adage, “the dog does not eat the dog.”
The phrase “dog eat dog” is used to indicate a ruthless mentality, one in which causing harm to others is an acceptable means to achieving a goal. While at first blush the phrase seems to refer to wild animals fighting for survival, “dog eat dog” is more often used to describe challenging social situations such as a work environment. It implies that all competitors share a similar vision and that all are willing to fight to survive and thrive, regardless of the consequences for others.
“Dog eat dog” echoes the sentiment of the so-called law of the jungle, known by the phrase “kill or be killed”. Another common phrase, “every man for himself,” also repeats this theme. According to these adages, wild animals, and especially dogs, are willing to fight and kill each other in order to survive. “Dog eat dog” goes one step further, stating that these creatures will resort to cannibalism. Both “dog eat dog” and “kill or be killed” use the harsh realities of life in the wild to justify selfish and ruthless actions in society.
According to the dog-eat-dog view, a person who does not embrace this strategy will become the victim. Consideration and empathy are not seen as virtues, but as weaknesses meant to be exploited. Betrayal, deception, intimidation and other underhanded tactics generally considered unacceptable by the general public are considered smart and effective. The morality of an action is simply seen as irrelevant, with potential reward and risk of repercussion being the real deciding factors.
This idiom may be a distortion of a much older adage. The oldest recorded versions of this phrase, a Latin proverb first recorded in English in 1543, states “the dog does not eat the dog”. This statement seems to indicate that dogs will only turn on each other so viciously under extremely dire conditions. While dogs will certainly fight and compete with each other, it’s unusual for them to kill each other, especially within a group, and even less likely for one to eat the other after a fight.
Thomas Fuller may have been the first to publish the “dog eat dog” sentiment as early as 1732, although his wording was markedly different. In Gnomalogy, he wrote: “Dogs are tough when they eat dogs.” Etymologists believe that the oral use of the idiom “dog eat dog” can date back to the mid-nineteenth century. This leaner, more modern three-word phrase began to be used commonly in print in the early 1919s.
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