A whippet is a breed of dog: a small, very thin, deep-chested dog that looks like a greyhound made smaller. It has long thin legs, a narrow head, a tucked-in waist and a curved back, and it is built for one thing — running very fast over a short distance. Whippets were bred in the north of England, kept by working families who raced them and used them to catch rabbits, and dog-racing with whippets is still part of that history. In real life a whippet is a gentle, quiet, rather shy house dog that sleeps most of the day and needs a coat in winter because it has almost no fat and very short hair. That build gives English a set of comparisons: 'thin as a whippet' means very slim, and calling a runner or a footballer 'a whippet' is a compliment about sudden speed. It is a countable noun. Note that the American slang 'whippit' or 'whippet', meaning a small canister of laughing gas, is a different word entirely — it comes from whipped cream, because the canisters are sold for whipping cream.

惠比特犬（小型競速犬，像縮小版的靈緹犬／格雷伊獵犬）