Pig
Featured in: Year 1: Animals, including humans
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Pig
Mammal
A farm animal with a stout body, short legs, and a distinctive snout.
💡 Fun Facts
- Pigs are highly intelligent animals, often considered smarter than dogs.
- They don't have sweat glands, which is why they roll in mud to cool down.
- They have an excellent sense of smell.
Name Story
Sus domesticus
means “the household swine”
likely meaningThe words themselves are settled, but the pig's formal name is not: it is written either as its own species, Sus domesticus, or as a domesticated subspecies of the wild boar, Sus scrofa domesticus.
What does its name mean?
- Sus — pig, swineLatin (cognate with Greek hys and with English 'sow')
- domesticus — of the house, domesticatedLatin domus 'house'Decode this word →
A pig's name is as plain as can be: 'Sus' is simply the old Latin word for a pig — it is even related to our own word 'sow' — and 'domesticus' means 'of the house', the mark of an animal that lives alongside people. So 'Sus domesticus' means, quite simply, 'the household pig'.