entry
pig
/pɪɡ/A swine; also its meat or greedy person
From O.English / Germanic, ultimate origin uncertain pig (Piglet or swine).
from Old English *picg , found in compounds, but, like dog , its further etymology unknown. The older general word for...
+1 more sourcefrom Middle English pigge (“pig, piglet”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn (“swine”))
from Middle English pigge (“pig, piglet”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn (“swine”))
from Middle English pigge (“pig, piglet”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn (“swine”))
Word Ancestry
from Old English *picg , found in compounds, but, like dog , its further etymology unknown. The older general word for...
+1 more sourcefrom Middle English pigge (“pig, piglet”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn (“swine”))
from Middle English pigge (“pig, piglet”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn (“swine”))
from Middle English pigge (“pig, piglet”) (originally a term for a young pig, with adult pigs being swyn (“swine”))
For centuries, English kept a tidy age-and-sex filing system for these animals: a young one was a pig, a female was a sow, a male was a boar, and the general adult term was swine. Then, sometime in the early 1300s, pig stopped caring about the paperwork and became the word for the whole barnyard. Its deepest ancestry is murky: it may belong with Germanic forms such as Middle Low German pûke and Dutch big, though the sound changes are troublesome, and one proposed connection reaches toward Proto-Indo-European *perk-, “dig, furrow,” via another Old English pig-word, fearh. That possible digging link would fit the animal’s famously purposeful snout, while its later figurative career supplied “greedy person” and, by at least 1785, the contemptuous slang sense “police officer.” Sailors even avoided saying pig aloud, using grunter or porker instead—a superstition perhaps tied to the drowned Gadarene swine. A pig can therefore be a barnyard animal, a policeman, a glutton, or a piece of meat: one short word with an unexpectedly crowded pen.
The Story
For centuries, English kept a tidy age-and-sex filing system for these animals: a young one was a pig, a female was a sow, a male was a boar, and the general adult term was swine. Then, sometime in the early 1300s, pig stopped caring about the paperwork and became the word for the whole barnyard. Its deepest ancestry is murky: it may belong with Germanic forms such as Middle Low German pûke and Dutch big, though the sound changes are troublesome, and one proposed connection reaches toward Proto-Indo-European *perk-, “dig, furrow,” via another Old English pig-word, fearh. That possible digging link would fit the animal’s famously purposeful snout, while its later figurative career supplied “greedy person” and, by at least 1785, the contemptuous slang sense “police officer.” Sailors even avoided saying pig aloud, using grunter or porker instead—a superstition perhaps tied to the drowned Gadarene swine. A pig can therefore be a barnyard animal, a policeman, a glutton, or a piece of meat: one short word with an unexpectedly crowded pen.
Modern Usage
A derogatory term for a police officer; also an insulting term for a greedy, insensitive, or sexually crude person.
Notable References
- The Dictionary of Buckish Slang, London, 1811
Kin & Kindred
From 'pig'·Piglet or swine
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Wikipedia
Wiktionary