big dog

big dog (plural big dogs)

1. A term of address to a male friend.

   Hey what's up big dog?

   • 2001, Shaquille O'Neal, quoting Kobe Bryant, Shaq Talks Back, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, →ISBN, page 241:

     "Thanks, big dog," he said.

   • 2022 May 7, @ken_wheeler, Twitter‎^[1], archived from the original on 26 March 2024:

     My 7yo was cursing and I was ok big dog you wanna cuss, let's hit the Stu, show the world that pottymouth, and she balked lol

2. (slang) An important or powerful person.
   • 1992, Jess Mowry, Way Past Cool, New York, N.Y.: Farrar Straus Giroux, →ISBN, page 225:

     "Seem like to me Deck goin round shit-disturbin, what it is. An he too puss to go messin with the big dogs, so he schemin on us. Shit, man, I take that motherfucker down myself, cept he ain't never out that bodyguard of his, an word say that dude one way bad sucker."

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see big,‎ dog.

• “big dog n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present