bear hound,bear-hound

Frombear +‎hound.

bearhound (pluralbearhounds)

1. Adog used forbearbaiting orbearhunting.
   • 1887,Thomas Wallace Knox,The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire,Chapter 11:

     "For his amusement John the Terrible used to order a number of people to be sewed up in bear-skins, and then torn to death bybear-hounds. For tearing prisoners to pieces he ordered the tops of several trees to be bent down so that they came together; the limbs of the unfortunate victim were fastened to these tops, each limb to a different tree. When they were thus tied up, the release of the trees performed the work intended by the cruel Czar."

   • 1918, Melville Davisson Post,Uncle Abner: Master of Mysteries,Chapter 5text=There seemed no overt reason, old Clayborne said, but presently Dabney began to act like a man in fear. He made friends with the dog, a big oldbearhound. He got a fowling piece and set it up by the head of his bed, and finally took the dog into ​the room with him at night. He kept out of the house by day.:

• “bearhound”, inWebster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.:G. & C. Merriam,1913,→OCLC.