Other forms: pups, pupping
A pup is a baby dog — the small, clumsy, chewing-everything stage. It is also what you call a newborn seal lying on a beach, or a wolf cub tumbling about outside the den.
Pup is short for puppy and the two swap freely, though pup sounds a shade more matter-of-fact: a vet or a farmer says pup. It works as a verb too — a seal pups on the ice, meaning she gives birth. Soldiers and campers sleep in a pup tent, a low two-person tent. Older English calls a cocky young man a pup, as in 'you insolent young pup', which reads as dated now. In Britain, being sold a pup means being tricked into buying something worthless.
1nounwhelpA young dog.
“The pup chewed through two pairs of shoes in a week.”
2nounpupA young seal, wolf, fox or similar animal.
“Grey seal pups are born white and stay on the beach for weeks.”
synonyms: cub
3verbgiveTo give birth to pups.
“The fox pupped under the shed at the end of the garden.”
pup is a young animal.
Pup is not an old word in its own right: it is puppy with the ending knocked off, a clipping of the same kind that gives lab from laboratory. The short form then went its own way, spreading to seals, wolves and foxes, which nobody calls puppies.
a clipping of puppy.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA