pig

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A farm animal with a fat body, short legs, and a flat nose, kept for its meat.

   The farmer kept three pigs in a pen behind the barn.

2. 2
   noun

   The meat from a pig; pork.

   Some religions do not allow people to eat pig.

3. 3
   noun

   Someone who eats too much, too fast, or in a messy way.

   You greedy pig, you've eaten all the cake!

4. 4
   noun

   A rude or unpleasant person who behaves in a dirty or selfish way.

   He is a real pig who never cleans up after himself.

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 (> We…

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