skip to content skip to search skip to navigation Listen Live skip to logon

Where does 'Hair of the dog' come from?

alcohol.jpgQuestion

Where does the phrase ‘Hair of the dog’ come from?
Gareth, Thames Ditton

Answer

** Definitive **
Name: Andy, Chatham
Qualification: I know the answer!
Answer: The full phrase is “the hair of the dog that bit you”. The story goes that if you got bitten by a dog, you’d put some of its hair into the wound and it would help it heal. The same thing was applied to alcohol.