Pigs

How to spell pigs

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pigs

What does pigs mean?

1. nounThe plural of pig: domesticated animals kept for their meat, known for their snouts and curly tails.

Pigs in a sentence

• The farmer fed the pigs before sunrise each morning.

• Three pigs rolled happily in the muddy pen.

Where does pigs come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from Middle English 'pigge', which referred to a young pig and only later came to mean the animal at any age. Its earlier roots are obscure, but it appears related to Old English 'picga', a word that survives only in compounds and whose ultimate source is uncertain. The plural simply adds the regular '-s' ending used for most English nouns. Older general terms for the animal were 'swine' and 'hog', and 'pig' gradually overtook them in everyday speech from the medieval period onward. Because the spelling is short and entirely regular, the only thing to remember is the plain '-s' plural, with no doubling and no change to the root.

How the word is built

• pig (the animal)
• -s (plural suffix)