the.com/dog days of summer
Named for Sirius the Dog Star, not actual dogs melting on sidewalks.
means The sluggish, stagnant stretch of mid-to-late summer when heat and humidity peak and everything — ambition included — slows to a crawl.
from From Latin 'dies caniculares,' the ancient Romans' name for the weeks when Sirius, the 'Dog Star' (part of Canis Major), rises and sets with the sun. They believed its added heat combined with the sun's to cause the sweltering misery of the season — bad astronomy, but the name outlasted the theory.
- origin
- Romans blamed Sirius rising with the sun for the heat
- timing
- Roughly early July to mid-August in the Northern Hemisphere
- ancient belief
- Thought to bring fevers, madness, and bad luck
- irony
- Dogs just pant through it like everyone else