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swine

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Show Pig Game
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swine

  [swahyn] ,
Use swine in a Sentence
–noun, plural swine.
1. any stout, cloven-hoofed artiodactyl of the Old World family Suidae, having a thick hide sparsely covered with coarse hair, a disklike snout, and an often short, tasseled tail: now of worldwide distribution and hunted or raised for its meat and other products. Compare hog, pig, wild boar.
2. the domestic hog, Sus scrofa.
3. a coarse, gross, or brutishly sensual person.
4. a contemptible person.
Origin:
bef. 900; ME; OE swīn; c. G Schwein hog, L suīnus (adj.) porcine; akin to sow 2

Related forms:
swinelike, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Show Pig Game
Breed and manage a small farm of show pigs in this online game.
www.showhog.com
swine   (swīn)   
n.   pl. swine

  1. Any of various omnivorous, even-toed ungulates of the family Suidae, including pigs, hogs, and boars, having a stout body with thick skin, a short neck, and a movable snout.

  2. A person regarded as brutish or contemptible.


[Middle English, from Old English swīn; see sū- in Indo-European roots.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

swine 
O.E. swin "pig, hog," from P.Gmc. *swinan (cf. O.S., O.Fris. M.L.G., O.H.G. swin, M.Du. swijn, Du. zwijn, Ger. Schwein), neut. adj. (with suffix *-ino-) from PIE *su- (see sow (n.)). The native word, largely ousted by pig. Applied to persons from c.1380. Swineherd is recorded from c.1100 as swynhyrde; swinish is from c.1200. Phrase pearls before swine is from Matt. vii.6; an early Eng. formation of it was:
"Ne ge ne wurpen eowre meregrotu toforan eo wrum swynon." [c.1000]
Which is a misreading of L. marguerite "daisy" as margarite "pearl."
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: swine
Pronunciation: 'swIn
Function: noun
: any of various stout-bodied short-legged mammals (family Suidae) with a thick bristly skin and a longmobile snout; especially : a domesticated member of a species (Sus scrofa) that occurs wild in the Old World
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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Bible Dictionary

Swine

(Heb. hazir), regarded as the most unclean and the most abhorred of all animals (Lev. 11:7; Isa. 65:4; 66:3, 17; Luke 15:15, 16). A herd of swine were drowned in the Sea of Galilee (Luke 8:32, 33). Spoken of figuratively in Matt. 7:6 (see Prov. 11:22). It is frequently mentioned as a wild animal, and is evidently the wild boar (Arab. khanzir), which is common among the marshes of the Jordan valley (Ps. 80:13).

Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
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Idioms & Phrases

swine

see cast pearls before swine.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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