adjective
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like a pig, esp in appetite or manners
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informal obstinate or mean
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of piggish
Explanation
Someone who's piggish is disagreeable and greedy. No one wants to be friends with the piggish kid at the party who shoves everyone else out of the way to grab all the candy from the piñata. This adjective is perhaps a little unfair to pigs, who eat a lot but rarely more than they need. Before the 20th century, a piggish person was "unclean or coarse," another insult to pigs, known to roll in mud in order to stay cool and screen their skin from the sun. Today, the word is more commonly used to mean "greedy."
Vocabulary lists containing piggish
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A couple of would-be thieves in Kentucky have been arrested for their alleged piggish behavior.
From Fox News ● Nov. 19, 2019
It shows a girl with long golden hair, sneezing so explosively that the torrential discharge has turned her nose into a piggish snout.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 3, 2017
Bermudez says she was driven to protest by the allegedly piggish behavior of men with whom she worked at the Transportation Security Administration headquarters across the street.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 30, 2016
Fred Kaplan and others have taken me to task for calling the piggish executive Joan and Peggy encountered “cartoonish,” because, in fact, men of that era were just that bad.
From Slate ● May 18, 2015
I watched the baron’s piggish face chew open-mouthed on the sacrificial pig.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
