Swine

//swaɪn// noun, slang

noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A pig (the animal).
  2. 2
    plural of sow archaic, form-of, plural
  3. 3
    stout-bodied short-legged omnivorous animals wordnet
  4. 4
    A pig (the animal). The Zimmerman farm introduced swine to their husbandry.; The Zimmerman farm introduced swine to their husbandry.
  5. 5
    A contemptible person (plural swine or swines). derogatory
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    A police officer; a "pig". derogatory, slang
  2. 7
    Something difficult or awkward; a pain. derogatory, slang

    "That old car is a swine to manoeuvre."

Synonyms

All synonyms
animalantelopearmadillobarrowbastardbat

Example

More examples

"It is like casting pearls before swine."

Etymology

From Middle English swyn, swin, from Old English swīn, from Proto-West Germanic *swīn, from Proto-Germanic *swīną, from an adjectival form of Proto-Indo-European *suH- (“pig”). By surface analysis, sow + -en. Cognates Related to West Frisian swyn, Low German Swien, Dutch zwijn, German Schwein, Danish and Swedish svin, and more distantly to Polish świnia, Russian свинья́ (svinʹjá), Latin sūinus, Latin sūs, Ancient Greek ὗς (hûs), Persian خوک (xuk).

Related phrases

African swine fever virusGadarene swinecast pearls before swinegiant thorny-headed worm of swinego the entire swinepearls before swinesea swinesea-swineswine feverswine fleshswine fluswine influenza

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