Dog is the common use term that refers to members of the subspecies Canis lupus familiaris. The term is sometimes used to refer to a wider range of species: it can be used to refer to any mammal belonging to the family Canidae, which includes wolves, foxes, jackals, and coyotes; it can be used to refer to the subfamily of Caninae, or the genus Canis, also often called the "true dogs". Some members of the family have "dog" in their common names, such as the raccoon dog and the African wild dog. A few animals have "dog" in their common names but are not canids, such as the prairie dog and the dog fish.
The English word "dog" can be traced back to the Old English docga, a "powerful breed of canine". The term may derive from Proto-Germanic *dukkōn, represented in Old English finger-docce ("finger-muscle"). Due to the linguistically archaic structure of the word, the term dog may ultimately derive from the earliest layer of Proto-Indo-European vocabulary, reflecting the role of the dog as the earliest domesticated animal.
The English word hound, which refers to a specific breed group in English, means "dog" in general in other Germanic languages - it is cognate to German hund, Dutch hond, common Scandinavian hund, and Icelandic hundur. Hound itself is derived from the Proto-Indo-European *kwon-, which is also the direct root of the Greek κύων (kuōn) and the indirect root of the Latin canis through the variant form *kani-.
In breeding circles, a male canine is referred to as a dog, while a female is called a bitch. A group of offspring is a litter. The father of a litter is called the sire, and the mother is called the dam. Offspring are generally called pups or puppies until they are about a year old. The process of birth is whelping.
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