pig
/pɪɡ/
pig
Definition
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.
Etymology
From Middle English pigge (“pig, pigling”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn (“swine”)), apparently from Old English *picga (attested only in compounds, such as picgbrēad (“mast, pig-fodder”)), from Proto-West Germanic *piggō, *puggō (“piglet”). Compare Middle Dutch pogge, puggen, pigge, pegsken (“pigling”), Middle Low German pugge, pûke (“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". A connection to early modern Dutch bigge (contemporary big (“piglet”)), West Frisian bigge (“pigling”), and similar terms in Middle Low German 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.
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."