Doge

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /dəʊdʒ/

Definitions

1. A historical title referring to the elected chief of state in the Republic of Venice and other Italian city-states
2. An Internet meme depicting a Shiba Inu dog with multicolored text in broken English
3. A figurehead leader in various contexts, especially within meme culture and online communities

Etymology: Before it named a Venetian ruler, "doge" was a word with a very different job: the title of the elected head of the Republic of Venice came from Latin "dux", meaning leader or commander, and it sits in the same family as "duke", "duce" and "duc". English took the Venetian form through Middle French and Italian, so the title and the older English word for a commander are close cousins that arrived by different routes. The more surprising "doge" is a modern internet creation. In the 2005 episode "Biz Cas Fri 1" from the web cartoon Homestar Runner, the word appears as a sensational spelling of "dog", on the model of "doggy" and the playful respelling "monke". It spread as a meme image, showing a Shiba Inu surrounded by floating English phrases, and the joke spelling gave the word a second life far removed from Venetian politics.