pigstick

English

Alternative forms

• pig stick

Etymology

pig +‎ stick

Verb

pigstick (third-person singular simple present pigsticks, present participle pigsticking, simple past and past participle pigsticked or pigstuck)

1. To stab.
   • 1894, Henry Lawson, Henry Lawson, the Master Story-teller: Prose Writings, page 883:

     But if he goes (I always looked things in the face) I suppose I'll get to the Front, too, and do me best to pigstick someone in baggy breeches that I never saw or heard of before […]

   • 1985, Joe Rosenblatt, Escape from the Glue Factory: A Memoir of a Paranormal Toronto:

     Sometimes I tried to pigstick him with a broken broom stick ...

   • 1997, Glen Cook, Bleak Seasons, page 276:

     Mother Gota gutted two and l pigstuck one when I walked in.

   • 1997, Paula Detmer Riggs, Desperate Measures, page 207:

     Unless you get pigstuck first. I got friends inside that owe me.

2. (obsolete) To hunt pigs.
   • 1883, Matthew Horace Hayes, Indian Racing Reminiscences, page 154:

     There were generally enough, however, to pigstick with, hunt jackals, or even wolves at times, and "lark" over the steeplechase course which he had constructed round the* four hundred acre indigo field that was close to the house.

   • 1911, The King's Royal Rifle Corps Chronicle, page 187:

     After the Kadir, three Officers stayed down on leave to pigstick at Meerut, but only one stuck it out to the end of the season, the attraction of Simla and polo at Dehra Dun claiming the other two respectively.

   • 1911, The Lancet, page 917:

     Firstly, I know a subaltern in a British regiment who plays polo and pigsticks and occasionally shoots big game […]

   • 1914, Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea; Letters of Travel, volume 2, page 278:

     They know how, or they would be severally and separately and many times dead, but they do not, they do not indeed, know that animals who stand on one hind leg and beckon with all the rest, or try to pigstick in harness, are not trap-horses worthy of endearing names, but things to be pole-axed.

Noun

pigstick (plural pigsticks)

1. A waterjet disruptor used to disable explosive devices.
   • 2009, J. A. Knorath, Cherry Bomb:

     The pigstick was set up on the nightstand next to him, the shotgun shell held in place by a metal arm. I followed the wire to a timing device, realized I had no expertise at all to disarm it, and chose instead to simply point the contraption away from Lance.

   • 2013, Paula Reid, World's Most Dangerous Jobs:

     The 'pigstick' (named from hunting wild boar with a spear) is a British Army name for the waterjet disrupter used on the Wheelbarrow robot against the IRA in the 1970s.

2. (nautical) A staff that carries a flag or pennant above the mast of a sailboat.
   • 1959, The Bluejackets' Manual, volume 15, page 198:

     Above the truck there is frequently a slender vertical extension of the mast, called a pigstick.

   • 1983 January, Cruising World, page 148:

     Haul away, keeping strain on both parts of the halyard so that the pigstick remains vertical as it goes up and doesn't foul the spreaders.

   • 1989, Roger C. Taylor, Knowing the ropes: a sailor's guide to selecting, rigging, and handling lines aboard:

     Pull the flag up with the hauling part, then tighten the downhaul part to bring the pigstick vertical.

   • 1997 July, Yachting, volume 181, number 7, page 70:

     As the owner of this sailboat, I fuss about on deck, lashing down oars and fishing rods, pigsticks and awnings, for what might be a bouncy overnight passage.

3. (obsolete) An event or gathering at which pigs are hunted for sport.
   • 1876 June, Fin Mackoul, “A bit of hog-hunting”, in The Oriental Sporting Magazine, page 220:

     I send you an account of a pigstick at which I was the other day, if you care to insert it in your Magazine.

   • 1902, Letters and Sketches of Francis T. Warre Cornish:

     The scene was far more picturesque than any Dutch picture, but the modern unromantic 'pigstick' is an infinitely finer sport than the original 'boar hunt,' and the only way the "gray boar" should meet his death.

   • 1917, Tatler: An Illustrated Journal of Society, the Drama, and Sport:

     It was at one of these great centres of sport and geniality in the merry month of March that Hamish McTavish decided to espouse the widow McKie, and by way of making it a really big occasion he organised a mammoth pigstick to precede the event […]

4. A stick that is used for stabbing.
   • 1912, The Cruelty Man: Actual Experiences of an Inspector of the N.S.P.C.C.:

     Nellie has often begged food from her : she has seen the woman use the "pigstick" to thrash the child with, and heard cries and moans coming from the end house.

   • 1973, Rumanian Review, volume 27, page 41:

     We had to let the Germans come nearer, but it was impossible to let them come near when you saw them pointing their pigsticks at you, it put the fear of death in you and you wanted to shoot, but they wouldn't allow us […]

   • 1988, Richard Brigham, Guns and goshawks: country life and country sports, page 4:

     Sensing something of an anticlimax, I administered to the rat a helpful prod in the ribs with the pigstick […]

   • 2004, Lee Siegel, Love and Other Games of Chance: A Novelty, page 236:

     In 1857, a Captain Harding of the Bengal Lancers fired his pistol in self-defense at the head of drunken sepoy who assaulted him with a pigstick.