guinea-pig
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
10 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "guinea-pig", 10-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "guinea-pig" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "guinea-pig" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
guinea pig is aEnglishnoun. It means: Any tailless rodent of the genus Cavia, which have short ears and superficially resemble large hamsters. Pronounced /ˈɡɪni pɪɡ/.
Compare similar words
See how guinea pig compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | guinea pig |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡɪni pɪɡ/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for guinea pig is 10 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡɪni pɪɡ/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for guinea pig in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: The origin of "guinea" in "guinea pig" is uncertain. One theory is that the animals, which are originally from South America, were brought to Europe by way of Guinea, leading people to think they had originated there. "Guinea" was also frequently used in En… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is guinea pig, spelled G-U-I-N-E-A- -P-I-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Any tailless rodent of the genus Cavia, which have short ears and superficially resemble large hamsters.
- 2Any tailless rodent of the genus Cavia, which have short ears and superficially resemble large hamsters.
- 3A living experimental subject.
- 4A professional company director, without time or real qualifications for the duties.
- 5A midshipman in the East India service; (by extension) a low-skilled or non-proficient seaman.
Etymology
The origin of "guinea" in "guinea pig" is uncertain. One theory is that the animals, which are originally from South America, were brought to Europe by way of Guinea, leading people to think they had originated there. "Guinea" was also frequently used in English to refer generally to any far-off, unknown country, and so the name may simply be a colorful reference to the animal's foreignness. Others believe "guinea" may be an alteration of the word coney (“rabbit”); guinea pigs were referred to as "pig coneys" in Edward Topsell's 1607 treatise on quadrupeds. The figurative sense of "experimental subject" was first used in the early 20th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which cites examples from 1913 and 1920. It arose from the once extensive usage of guinea pigs in scientific research since at least the 17th century, which had a peak in popularity in the 19th and 20th centuries, when they were part of groundbreaking germ-theory research and of orbital space flights. Compare Italian cavia, Portuguese cobaia, and the latter's loans into French cobaye, Spanish cobaya, Romanian cobai, and Turkish kobay, all of which mean both "guinea pig" and "volunteer for lab experiment", with the latter often being the commoner sense.
This word in other languages
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "guinea pig"?
What does "guinea pig" mean?
How do you pronounce "guinea pig"?
What is the origin of the word "guinea pig"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter G in our English index: