Pigskin

//ˈpɪɡˌskɪn// noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The skin of a pig. countable, uncountable

    "In addition, most gelatins made today are produced from pigskins, which are not subject to this consideration."

  2. 2
    leather from the skin of swine wordnet
  3. 3
    Leather made from the skin of a pig. countable, uncountable

    "Those killed fighting his troops would be buried in pigskins."

  4. 4
    A football. US, countable, slang

    "To paraphrase a renowned pigskin philosopher, speed is not everything, it is the only thing."

Example

More examples

"In addition, most gelatins made today are produced from pigskins, which are not subject to this consideration."

Etymology

Compound of pig + skin. The American football is a direct descendant of the ball used in the game of rugby. The rugby ball originally was made of a pig’s bladder with a leather cover; the earliest versions of the leather exterior sometimes were made of pigskin.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.