pup tent

English

Etymology

Compound of pup (“puppy, small dog”) +‎ tent, from dog tent, military slang for a shelter tent. Attested from the late 19th century.

Noun

pup tent (plural pup tents)

1. A shelter tent.
2. (US, military, historical) A shelter half, one of two halves comprising a shelter tent or dog tent.
   • 1947 July, J.F.L., “Tenting Tonight”, in Infantry Journal, page 37:

     Colonel Elbridge Colby in Army Talk tells us that the shelter-half, or “pup tent” made its debut during the Civil War. It seems to have been first christened “pup tent” by the Sixth Iowa Infantry at Memphis in 1862 and appears to stem etymologically from the same soldierly self-ridicule that resulted in such terms as “dogface” and “dog tags.”

References

• “pup, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2007.