Kenneling

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The process of providing shelter for pets within a specific facility
2. The act of confining animals to a designated space for their care and management
3. The act of placing animals in kennels for temporary or permanent care ; the practice of keeping animals confined to a controlled enclosure for management or safety

Etymology: The verb "kenneling" comes from the noun "kennel," which has two entirely separate histories that happened to collide. The first sense, a shelter for a dog, descends from Latin "canis," meaning dog. Late Latin formed "canile" from it, and Old French turned that into "chenil," which Anglo-Norman speakers reshaped into a northern form that reached Middle English as "kenel" or "kenell." So the animal-house meaning is literally "dog-place," built on the same root as "canine." The second sense, a gutter or drain, is an unrelated word that has nothing to do with dogs. It came from Latin "canalis," meaning channel, which itself grew from "canna," the reed. That reed came from Greek and ultimately from a Sumerian word for reed, making it one of the oldest traceable words in this family. Middle English spelled it "canel," and it is cognate with the English words "channel" and "canal." Both kennels share a Latin root, but only one of them ever had anything to do with dogs.

Synonyms: boarding