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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hog.

Any animal belonging to the Suidae family of mammals, especially the pig, the warthog, and the boar.

3 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hɒɡ/Received-Pronunciation/hɔɡ/General-American/hɑɡ/General-American, cot-caught-merger
  1. Any animal belonging to the Suidae family of mammals, especially the pig, the warthog, and the boar.

  2. Any animal belonging to the Suidae family of mammals, especially the pig, the warthog, and the boar. An adult swine, at or above a certain body weight.

    specifically
  3. A greedy person or thing; one who refuses to share; a gluttonous one.

    figuratively · informal
    resource hog
    Since the latest upgrade, this program has turned into a CPU hog.
  4. A large motorcycle, particularly a Harley-Davidson.

    slang
  5. A young sheep that has not been shorn.

    UK
  6. A rough, flat scrubbing broom for scrubbing a ship's bottom under water.

  7. A device for mixing and stirring the pulp from which paper is made.

  8. A shilling coin; its value, 12 old pence.

    UK · archaic · countable · historical · slang · uncountable
  9. A tanner, a sixpence coin; its value.

    UK · countable · historical · obsolete · slang · uncountable
  10. A half-crown coin; its value, 30 old pence.

    UK · countable · historical · obsolete · slang · uncountable
  11. The effect of the middle of the hull of a ship rising while the ends droop.

  12. A penis.

    vulgar
Where this word comes from

From Middle English hog, from Old English hogg, hocg (“hog”), possibly from Old Norse hǫggva (“to strike, chop, cut”), from Proto-Germanic *hawwaną (“to hew, forge”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewh₂- (“to beat, hew, forge”). Cognate with Old High German houwan, Old Saxon hauwan, Old English hēawan (English hew). Hog originally meant a castrated male pig, hence a sense of “the cut one”. (Compare hogget for a castrated male sheep.) More at hew. Alternatively from a Brythonic language, from Proto-Celtic *sukkos, from Proto-Indo-European *suH- and thus cognate with Welsh hwch (“sow”) and Cornish hogh (“pig”).

verb/hɒɡ/Received-Pronunciation/hɔɡ/General-American/hɑɡ/General-American, cot-caught-merger
  1. To greedily take more than one's share, to take precedence at the expense of another or others.

    informal · transitive
    Hey! Quit hogging all the blankets.
  2. To clip the mane of a horse, making it short and bristly.

    transitive
  3. To clip the mane of a horse, making it short and bristly. (of a hedge) to trim up closely

    transitive
  4. To scrub with a hog, or scrubbing broom.

  5. To cause the keel of a ship to arch upwards (the opposite of sag).

    transitive
  6. To take a rough cut, quickly removing material; to hog out.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English hog, from Old English hogg, hocg (“hog”), possibly from Old Norse hǫggva (“to strike, chop, cut”), from Proto-Germanic *hawwaną (“to hew, forge”), from Proto-Indo-European *kewh₂- (“to beat, hew, forge”). Cognate with Old High German houwan, Old Saxon hauwan, Old English hēawan (English hew). Hog originally meant a castrated male pig, hence a sense of “the cut one”. (Compare hogget for a castrated male sheep.) More at hew. Alternatively from a Brythonic language, from Proto-Celtic *sukkos, from Proto-Indo-European *suH- and thus cognate with Welsh hwch (“sow”) and Cornish hogh (“pig”).

verb/hɒɡ/Received-Pronunciation/hɔɡ/General-American/hɑɡ/General-American, cot-caught-merger
  1. To process (bark, etc.) into hog fuel.

    transitive
noun/hɒɡ/Received-Pronunciation/hɔɡ/General-American/hɑɡ/General-American, cot-caught-merger
  1. A quahog (clam).

    informal
Where this word comes from

Clipping of quahog.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.