pig
Meanings
- 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.
- A young swine, a piglet (contrasted with a hog, an adult swine).
- The edible meat of such an animal; pork.
- A light pinkish-red colour, like that of a pig (also called pig pink).
- Someone who overeats or eats rapidly and noisily.
- A lecherous or sexist man.
- A dirty or slovenly person.
- An obese person.
- A police officer.
- A difficult problem.
- An oblong block of cast metal (now only iron or lead).
- The mold in which a block of metal is cast.
- To give birth.
- To greedily consume (especially food).
- To huddle or lie together like pigs, in one bed.
- To live together in a crowded filthy manner.
- To clean (a pipeline) using a pig (the device).
- An earthenware pot or jar
- An earthenware vessel used as a hot-water bottle
- Persuade, Identify, GOTV, an electoral technique commonly employed in the United Kingdom.
- Police in gear.
- Acronym of pipe inspection gauge.
- The twelfth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar.
- Abbreviation of polyclonal immunoglobulin.
Pronunciation
Word forms
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.