Piggy

How to spell piggy

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce piggy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does piggy mean?

1. nounAn affectionate or childish word for a pig or piglet.
2. adjectiveGreedy, or small and narrow like a pig's features.

Piggy in a sentence

• noun

  The children laughed at the little piggy rolling in the mud.

• adjective

  His piggy eyes narrowed when he saw the last slice of cake.

• noun

  Every coin she saves goes straight into the ceramic piggy on her shelf.

• adjective

  She gave him a piggy grin as he grabbed a second helping.

Where does piggy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is an affectionate, nursery-style formation built on the everyday English noun 'pig', which has been recorded since the Middle English period as 'pigge' for a young swine. The exact roots of 'pig' itself are uncertain, though it is plainly a native Germanic word and may be related to dialect terms for the animal; the original sense referred specifically to a piglet rather than a full-grown hog. To this base English added the diminutive and affectionate ending '-y', the same playful suffix found in 'doggy', 'kitty' and 'mummy', and the final consonant was doubled to keep the short vowel, giving the spelling 'piggy'. The form became popular in children's speech and rhymes, most famously in the counting game about toes that begins 'this little piggy went to market'. As an adjective it later came to mean greedy or resembling a pig, as in the disparaging phrase 'piggy eyes'.

How the word is built

• pig (the animal)
• -gy (diminutive/affectionate -y suffix, with the consonant doubled)