It’s said that in some northern parts of the United Kingdom,Whippets are still called “hitalians, ”the local pronunciation of the name of the country from which it was supposed the breed came.  Whippets aren’t Italian, and they weren’t even called Whippets until in the mid 19th century when the modern notion of “pure breed” dogs was formed.

In Bo Bengtson’s “The Whippet – An Authoritative Look at the Breed’s Past, Present and Future,” he writes that the breed name didn’t necessarily mean what it does today. In 1550, a Whippet was described by The Oxford Dictionary of English as, “a lively young woman, or light wench.” Later the word came to be used for a “nimble, diminutive or puny person,” by 1610 for “a small breed of dog,” and as late as 1841, the Whippet was described as “a dog bred betwixt a greyhound and a spaniel.”  The first known mention of Whippets as show dogs dated from 1876.

Rebecca Collins – ArtPaw
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