Etymology

pig dog

Today it means: A dog bred to hunt wild pigs, typically based on breeds such as Staffordshire Terrier and English Bull Terrier. Full definition →

German Schweinehund
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. German · calque ofSchweinehund
  2. English todaypig dog

In Sense 2, a calque of German Schweinehund. Taj Burrow offers two (perhaps fanciful) explanations for Sense 3: that surfers tend to assume a dog-like expression when in this stance (page 119) or that the stance is low and sturdy like a dog (glossary page 171).

Words from the same roots

GermanSchweinehund all →

swinehound

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.