pig
/ˈpɪɡ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.14 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of several mammalian species of the family Suidae, having cloven hooves, bristles and a snout adapted for digging; especially the domesticated animal Sus domesticus.
Countable
noun
Any of several mammalian species of the family Suidae, having cloven hooves, bristles and a snout adapted for digging; especially the domesticated animal Sus domesticus.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The man kept a pen with two pigs that he fed everything from carrots to cabbage."
- "[…]and at the back a rambling courtledge of barns and walls, around which pigs and bare-foot children grunted in loving communion of dirt."
- "Weanlings grow into feeder pigs, and feeder pigs grow into slaughter hogs. […] Ultimately the end use for virtually all pigs and hogs is to be slaughtered for the production of pork and other products."
- "Some religions prohibit their adherents from eating pig."
- ""Miss Chastene, could you fetch me out an extra plate of pig and biscuit. My partner can't do without your marvelous cooking.""
- "So far on the streets there's been a lot of metallic pink (the kind of pink as in the shade of pig you get, and this is exactly the shade of the diary I've been writing in) […]"
Etymology
From Middle English pigge (“pig, piglet”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn (“swine”)), from Old English *picga, *pycga (attested in picgbrēad (“mast, pig-fodder”)), perhaps a diminutive of Proto-West Germanic *puk, *pūk (“pig”), which also gave rise to Middle Low German pûke, puyke (“pig, piglet”). Pokorny suggests this root might be somehow related to *bū-, *bew- (“to blow; swell”), which could account for the alternation between "pig" and "big". Compare Middle Dutch pogge, puggen, pigge, pegsken (> dialectal Dutch pogge (“piglet”)), Middle Low German pugge (> Westphalian German Low German Pogge, Pugge, Püggsken (“pig, piglet”)). A connection to early modern Dutch bigge (modern Dutch big (“piglet”)), West Frisian bigge (“piglet”), German Low German Bigge, Bigg (“piglet”), and Saterland Frisian Bikkie (“piggy”) is sometimes proposed, "but the phonology is difficult". Some sources say the words are "almost certainly not" related, others consider a relation "probable, but not certain". The slang sense of "police officer" is attested since at least 1785.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- Countable
- Uncountable
- Derogatory
- Slang
- Informal
- American usage
- British usage
- Obsolete
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Medicine.