hog
- a hoofed mammal of the family Suidae, order Artiodactyla, comprising boars and swine.
- a domesticated swine weighing 120 pounds (54 kg) or more, raised for market.
- a selfish, gluttonous, or filthy person.
- Slang.
- a large, heavy motorcycle.
- an impressively large luxury automobile.
- Also hogg, hogget. British.
- a sheep about one year old that has not been shorn.
- the wool shorn from such a sheep.
- any of several other domestic animals, as a bullock, that are one year old.
- Railroads Slang. a locomotive.
- a machine for shredding wood.
- Curling. a stone that stops before reaching the hog score.
- to appropriate selfishly; take more than one's share of.
- to arch (the back) upward like that of a hog.
- roach3(def 3).
- (in machine-shop practice) to cut deeply into (a metal bar or slab) to reduce it to a shape suitable for final machining.
- to shred (a piece of wood).
- Nautical. (of a hull) to have less than the proper amount of sheer because of structural weakness; arch.Compare sag(def 6a).
- go the whole hog, to proceed or indulge completely and unreservedly: We went the whole hog and took a cruise around the world.Also go whole hog.
- live high off/on the hog, to be in prosperous circumstances.Also eat high off the hog.
Origin of hog
Related Words
monopolizeExamples from the Web for hogging
Contemporary Examples
Because they knew even as they succeeded in hogging the spotlight people were snickering at them.
Now a particularly ugly strand of this phenomenon, Native American appropriation, is hogging the spotlight.
Not that David Macklovitch (aka Dave 1, aka the tall, skinny, Jewish one) is hogging credit for this.
Once denounced by McCain as ‘wacko birds’ hogging the spotlight, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul are soaring.
He jiggled the faceted glass door knob to let the person inside know he was hogging the lavatory.
Historical Examples
"Now, here we have a battery of six hogging machines," he'd say.
The House of TorchySewell Ford
This is known as the "hogging down" method of harvesting corn.
North DakotaVarious
So there was me, white in the face with grandeur, hogging the engine into the shed.
Plain Mary SmithHenry Wallace Phillips
We sit back and roast the trusts to a fare-you-well for hogging all there is in sight.
A Daughter of the DonsWilliam MacLeod Raine
"I think the way you two fellows are hogging the Ys and captaincies around here is disgraceful," complained the Codfish one night.
Frank Armstrong at CollegeMatthew M. Colton
hog
- a domesticated pig, esp a castrated male weighing more than 102 kg
- US and Canadian any artiodactyl mammal of the family Suidae; pig
- Also: hogg British dialect, Australian and NZ another name for hogget
- informal a selfish, greedy, or slovenly person
- nautical a stiff brush, for scraping a vessel's bottom
- nautical the amount or extent to which a vessel is hoggedCompare sag (def. 6)
- another word for camber (def. 4)
- slang, mainly US a large powerful motorcycle
- go the whole hog informal to do something thoroughly or unreservedlyif you are redecorating one room, why not go the whole hog and paint the entire house?
- live high on the hog or live high off the hog informal, mainly US to have an extravagant lifestyle
- slang to take more than one's share of
- to arch (the back) like a hog
- to cut (the mane) of (a horse) very short
Word Origin
Word Origin and History for hogging
hog
n.
late 12c. (implied in hogaster), "swine reared for slaughter" (usually about a year old), also used by stockmen for "young sheep" (mid-14c.) and for "horse older than one year," suggesting the original sense had something to do with an age, not a type of animal. Not evidenced in Old English, but it may have existed. Possibility of British Celtic origin {Watkins, etc.] is regarded by OED as "improbable." Figurative sense of "gluttonous person" is first recorded early 15c. Meaning "Harley-Davidson motorcycle" is attested from 1967.
To go hog wild is from 1904. Hog in armor "awkward or clumsy person in ill-fitting attire" is from 1650s. Phrase to go the whole hog (1828) is sometimes said to be from the butcher shop option of buying the whole slaughtered animal (at a discount) rather than just the choice bits. But it is perhaps rather from the story (recorded in English from 1779) of Muslim sophists, forbidden by the Quran from eating a certain unnamed part of the hog, who debated which part was intended and managed to exempt the whole of it from the prohibition.
hog
v.
"to appropriate greedily," U.S. slang, 1884 (first attested in "Huck Finn"), from hog (n.). Related: Hogged; hogging.
Idioms and Phrases with hogging
hog
see go hog wild; go whole hog; high off the hog; road hog.