dog paddle

1. 1.

   an elementary swimming stroke imitating a swimming dog

   Broaderswimming stroke

Questions about dog paddle

What does dog paddle mean?

dog paddle means "an elementary swimming stroke imitating a swimming dog".

Is dog paddle a common word?

dog paddle is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.