# What are the 'dog days' of summer?

The 'dog days' are the hottest weeks of summer — the Romans linked them to the dog-star Sirius rising with the sun (roughly July 3 to August 11). Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898), human-proofread transcription on English Wikisource records: “Days of great heat. The Romans called the six or eight hottest weeks of the summer canicula′rēs diēs. According to their theory, the dog-star or Sirius, rising with the sun, added to its heat, and the dog-days bore the combined heat of the dog-star and the sun. (July 3rd to August 11th.)”

## What it means

- Verbatim from Brewer's (1898): Days of great heat. The Romans called the six or eight hottest weeks of the summer canicula′rēs diēs. According to their theory, the dog-star or Sirius, rising with the sun, added to its heat, and the dog-days bore the combined heat of the dog-star and the sun. (July 3rd to August 11th.)

## Action steps

1. Modern usage: The 'dog days' are the hottest weeks of summer — the Romans linked them to the dog-star Sirius rising with the sun (roughly July 3 to August 11).
2. When quoting the origin, cite Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) — this is a 19th-century record, not a modern etymology.

## Sources

- [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) — Wikisource proofread text](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Brewer%27s_Dictionary_of_Phrase_and_Fable/Dog-days)

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