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 *dukkÅn, 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 is a cognate of German Hund, Dutch hond, common Scandinavian hund, Icelandic hundur which, though referring to a specific breed group in English, means "dog" in general in the other Germanic languages. Hound itself is derived from the Proto-Indo-European *kwon-, which is the direct root of the Greek ÎºÏ Ïν (kuÅn) and the indirect root of the Latin canis through the variant form *kani-.
