guinea pig
- noun
- /ˈɡɪni pɪɡ/
- My sister has a cute guinea pig that loves to run around in its cage.
- guinea pigs and ferrets
- infected guinea pigs
- using guinea pigs
Also edit out What do you know about breeding Guinea pigs?
- Also edit out What do you know about breeding Guinea pigs?
- He also found that lithium urate had a generally calming effect on these Guinea pigs.
- But I do, I think you do would have to aerosolize it, not just treat or you could treat organisms and and and inoculate Guinea mice or Guinea pigs.
- We saw bunnies, Guinea pigs, goats, like you probably saw all of it.
- And you could, it's damn, you know, they're just little, I mean, they're just little Guinea pigs, really.
- And they, they had kind of this kind of messed top that they put on it and all the hamsters and Guinea pigs separate would stay in those.
Examples
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They're guinea pigs!
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In the US, we consider Guinea pigs pets, but in Peru they are food.
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- Is that a guinea pig?
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I think I hear a guinea pig.
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You know, if we have Guinea pigs, you have to clean them.
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And how are the 13 guinea pigs ?
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You have a guinea pig, in the cage.
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I never had pets growing up, and we're a guinea pig family now.
Academic text (2013) -
Yes, she's my little guinea pig.
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Every Guinea pig loves carrots, and people love Guinea pigs.
Synonyms
A small animal like a mouse or rat that uses strong front teeth to chew
A small, furry pet often called a guinea pig that comes from South America
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
guinea + pig
The literal words 'guinea' and 'pig' denote an animal, and the MWE is a metaphorical extension from animals commonly used in experiments to a person used as a test subject. This motivated, cross-linguistically attested metaphor makes the connection partially predictable for learners who know the constituents, but the specific human-as-test-subject sense is not fully derivable without prior exposure.
Etymology
Guinea pig is the name of a small, gentle rodent that people keep as a pet and that researchers often use in labs. The clear image of this calm, round animal is the literal meaning of the words today.