The Great Dane is a German breed of large mastiff-sighthound, which descends from hunting dogs of the Middle Ages used to hunt bears, wild boar, and deer. They were also used as guardian dogs of German nobility. It is one of the two largest dog breeds in the world, along with the Irish Wolfhound.
In the sixteenth century, the nobility in many European countries imported strong, long-legged dogs of different sizes and phenotypes, some of mastiff or greyhound type, from England and Ireland. These dogs were called Englische Docke or Englische Tocke – later written and spelled: Dogge – or Englischer Hund in Germany. The name simply meant "English dog".
In 1878, a committee was formed in Berlin that changed the name of the "Englische Dogge" (English mastiff derivatives) to "Deutsche Dogge" (German mastiff), this being the Great Dane.
