I’ve seen it thrown around on social media and heard it discussed on my favorite podcasts: splooting. It sounds silly, and after a quick Google search, I can confirm it looks silly too! What is splooting and why is it a trending word this summer? The Word Nerd has you covered!
Definition of splooting
Splooting doesn’t show up in Merriam-Webster’s search engines, but it is popular slang. According to Dictionary.com’s slang dictionary:
Sploot is slang for the pose an animal, especially dogs, cats, and other four-legged pets, makes when it lies on its stomach with its hind legs stretched out back and flat. The term is especially associated with Welsh corgis and is used affectionately in the internet slang of DoggoLingo.
Dictionary.com – slang dictionary
My dog definitely sploots. How about your pet? Supposedly, cats sploot too. And also squirrels.
The Guardian recently published an article about splooting that quotes science professor Dan Blumstein. He explains that many mammals spread out with their legs behind them, or sploot, to cool down. By splooting, they expose the belly, which has less fur, to a cool surface.
Where does “splooting” come from?
Sploot comes from the growing vocabulary of “DoggoLingo”, a popular online language that uses intentional misspellings and onomatopoeias to describe dogs and the pictures and memes people post of them. This lingo started gaining popularity in the 2010s. Ever heard someone call their dog a “doge” or say a lab is “chonky” instead of chunky? That’s DoggoLingo. It’s believed this DoggoLingo started in Australia. This video gives more (humorous) examples:
According to lexicographer Grant Barrett of the A Way with Words radio show, sploot might have started as a variation of “splat”, which describes the sprawled out position a mammal assumes while splooting.
There you go! Now you know all about splooting!
What’s another slang term you’ve heard lately and don’t understand? Can you share more examples of DoggoLingo? Please do so in the comments.
Thanks for getting nerdy with me!
So fun to read Julia! Blessings to the whole tribe from Florida 🙂
Glad you enjoyed and good to hear from you! Hope you and yours are doing well. We are great. 🙂
Such a cute post! My MIL’s yellow lab definitely sploots! My wolfhound, not so much. Her hips are so big and unwieldy that she usually ends up just laying on her side 🙂
My shepherd mix puppy also spreads her legs when she’s sleeping on her back- maybe that’s also a cooling mechanism? She’s such “a lady”. 😛