pig
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "pig", 3-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "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 "pig" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
pig is aEnglishnoun. It means: 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. Pronounced /pɪɡ/. It ranks #5,724 in English word frequency. Often confused with PM and PP.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pig |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /pɪɡ/ |
| Letters | 3 |
| Frequency rank | #5,724 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for pig is 3 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /pɪɡ/. Corpus data places it at rank #5,724 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 20 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for pig in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "PM", "PP", "PR", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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”)… 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 pig, spelled P-I-G, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Any of several mammalian species of the family Suidae, having cloven hooves, bristles and a snout adapted for digging; especially the domesticated animal Sus domesticus.
- 2Any of several mammalian species of the family Suidae, having cloven hooves, bristles and a snout adapted for digging; especially the domesticated animal Sus domesticus.
- 3The edible meat of such an animal; pork.
- 4A light pinkish-red colour, like that of a pig (also called pig pink).
- 5Someone who overeats or eats rapidly and noisily.
- 6A lecherous or sexist man.
- 7A dirty or slovenly person.
- 8An obese person.
- 9A police officer.
- 10A difficult problem.
- 11An oblong block of cast metal (now only iron or lead).
- 12The mold in which a block of metal is cast.
- 13A lead container used for radioactive waste.
- 14A device for cleaning or inspecting the inside of an oil or gas pipeline, or for separating different substances within the pipeline. Named for the pig-like squealing noise made by their progress.
- 15The general-purpose M60 machine gun, considered to be heavy and bulky.
- 16A simple dice game in which players roll the dice as many times as they like, either accumulating a greater score or losing previous points gained.
- 17A sixpence.
- 18A Cadillac car.
- 19A Harley-Davidson motorcycle.
- 20The victim of a pig butchering scam.
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.
This word in other languages
Frequency rank: #5,724 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: