pyen.
/pʌɪ/, U.S. /paɪ/ Now rare.
Short for pye-dog n.
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the world > animals > mammals > group Unguiculata or clawed mammal > family Canidae > dog > [noun] > ownerless
street dog1775
pariah dog1780
pariah1816
pye-dog1864
pye1886
stray1892
1886 H. Yule & A. C. Burnell Hobson-Jobson 566/2 Pye, a familiar designation among British soldiers and young officers for a Pariah-dog.
1891 J. L. Kipling Beast & Man in India 266 We English call him a pariah, but this word, belonging to a low..class of people in Madras, is never heard on native lips as applied to a dog, any more than our other word ‘pie.’
1924 Blackwood's Mag. Sept. 355/1 The men of Bokkos and their dogs—the sorriest-looking pie-dogs in all Africa..go forth to get what they can. In a poor lot these Bokkos pies are the poorest.
2006 Frontier Star (Karachi, Pakistan) (Nexis) 7 June [To get rid of stray dogs] all town administrations of the city will launch anti-pye drive simultaneously.]
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1886