to buy a pig in a poke
1
9.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
comprar a ciegas
- Before making any large purchases, always inspect the item first; otherwise, you might be buying a pig in a poke.
Examples
-
Investing in that startup without conducting research felt like buying a pig in a poke; it could lead to disappointment.
-
To know what we're getting and not buying "a pig in a poke."
Blog text (29) -
Are the Democrats buying a pig in a poke?
Blog text (7) -
I want a review that gives me opinions on games and the rationale behind the opinion, but I never buy a pig in a poke.
Blog text (5) -
When the project entrepreneurs can perform a good selling job, a community may consent to an inappropriate study, or individual members may be left with the feeling that their group has bought a pig in a poke.
Academic text (1991) -
My point is that opponents of tenure do have to spell out what system they propose to substitute for the current one of evaluating faculty, and until they do, they are asking us to buy a pig in a poke.
Academic text (1997) -
He spoke only a few words to me, then muttered things under his breath, but quite audible to me, about my clothes and my face and my figure, saying that he should have known better, saying he bought a "pig in a poke."
Fiction book (1997) -
She refused to buy a pig in a poke and insisted on seeing the car before paying for it.
Synonyms
1
4.4
To buy something suddenly without planning or careful thought
Antonyms
How Carefully
Surface Forms
Morphology
A learner who knows 'buy', 'pig', 'in' and 'poke' (bag) can reconstruct the literal image of purchasing a pig enclosed in a bag and reasonably infer the risk of buying something unseen, so the idiomatic sense 'to buy without inspecting' is partially recoverable. However, the expression is culturally rooted and uses the somewhat archaic noun 'poke' and an idiomatic scenario, so the connection is not fully predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
The idiom buy a pig in a poke comes from old markets: a poke was a small bag and buyers could not see what was inside, so a seller might hide a cat instead of a pig. So, the phrase now means 'to buy something without checking' or to risk being tricked.