high on the hog
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.57 in modern English
26
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
Well off; living comfortably or extravagantly due to great wealth or financial security.
American usage
Example Sentences
- "Ever since his promotion, they’ve been living high on the hog."
- "With all the tenderloin, spareribs and backbones, we lived “high off the hog”."
- "Down our way there is a favorite expression used quite often—“eating high on the hog”. That is what our competitors have been doing…"
- "The synthetic belle wins the prize and her creators are eating high off the hog until the nation’s Press demands a look at the original."
- "If she was pulling this scam off all that time, I think she'd be living a little higher on the hog, don't you?"
Etymology
An allusion to the best and costliest cuts of meat from a hog, considered to be parts above the belly such as the loin, rather than lower parts such as the feet, knuckles, hocks, belly, and jowls. US, late 1800s; popularized 1940s. The variant forms – live/eat and on/off – are attested since at least the 1930s. However, decades earlier is the phrase on the hog, originally on the hog train meaning someone living on little expense.
Usage
- American usage