shaggy-dog story

[ shag-ee-dawg, -dog ]

noun

1. a funny story, traditionally about a talking dog, that, after an often long and involved narration of unimportant incidents, has an absurd or irrelevant punch line.

shaggy dog story

noun

1. informal.
   a long rambling joke ending in a deliberate anticlimax, such as a pointless punch line

Word History and Origins

Origin of shaggy-dog story¹

First recorded in 1945–50

Idioms and Phrases

A long drawn-out anecdote with an absurd or anticlimactic ending. For example, At first he had us laughing wildly at his shaggy-dog stories, but after the third or fourth we found them tiresome . The term alludes to a well-known series of such stories, which involved a talking dog. [c. 1940]