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ˈpiggy-back, ˈpick-a-back, advb. phr. (a., n., v.)
Forms: α. 6–7 a pick back, 6–9 pickback, 8– a pick-a-back, pick-a-back (dial. 9 pack-a-back, picki-, picky-back). β. 6–7 on pick-pack(e, 7 a pick-pack, a pick-a-pack, 7–9 dial. pick-pack, pick-a-pack. γ. 8 on pig back, 9 dial. pig-aback, pigga-back, pig-back, 9–piggy-back.
[Origin and form uncertain; the earliest examples have back, but the usual 17th c. forms had pack, which still occurs in some dialects; the primitive form was perh. either a pick back or a pick pack, whence, by dropping a, the later pick-, pick-a-, pig-, pig-a-, etc.
The evidence does not show whether the expression originally referred to a pack picked (pitched) on the back or shoulders, or to the back on which it is pitched; nor does it appear whether a pick answered to the F. à pic ‘vertically, perpendicularly’, was due to reduplication as in tip-top, etc., or had some other source. Cf. Ger. hucke-pack in same sense, found in Low and Middle Ger. from 18th c., which Schambach refers to pack the bundle carried (see Grimm s.v.). Whatever the origin, it is evident that popular etymology analysed it in various ways from a very early date.]
a. On the shoulders or back like a pack or bundle: said in reference to a person (or animal) carried in this way.
α1565J. Calfhill Answ. Treat. Crosse 42 b, To easy..is that way to heauen, whereto we may be caried a pickbacke on a Roode. 1570Foxe A. & M. (ed. 2) 12/1 [The pope] being caried pickbacke on mens shoulders. 1663Butler Hud. i. ii. 72 For as our modern Wits behold, Mounted a Pick-back on the Old. 1825Hone Every-day Bk. I. 1185 One of the leopards was carried by his keeper a pick-a-back. 1837Dickens Pickw. xxxviii, If I find it necessary to carry you away, pick-a-back. 1884M. G. Humphreys in Harper's Mag. Nov. 842/2 They..bring the men pick-back triumphantly to shore. 1896E. A. King Ital. Highways 114 Pulcinello..travels pick-a-back on the shoulders of a lean old woman.
β1591Harington Orl. Fur. xxxix. xlvii, Now Brandimart..leaps behind, a pick pack, on his backe, And holds his armes. 1614B. Jonson Barth. Fair ii. vi, By this light, I'le carry you away o' my backe [Stage-direction. He gets him vp on pick-packe]. 1655Verney Mem. (1894) III. 222 'Tis now the new fashion for Maydens in toun to ride a Pick Pack. 1677W. Hughes Man of Sin iii. iii. 75 St. Christopher carried Christ a Pick-pack over an Arm of the Sea. 1682tr. Selden's Eng. Janus Auth. Pref., Such creatures as carry the Goddess Nemesis on pickpack. 1694R. L'Estrange Fables ccxlviii. (1714) 263 Ina Hurry..carries the Other a Pick-a-Pack upon her Shoulders. 1858Mayhew Upper Rhine iv. §2 (1860) 205 Like a cottage perched pick-a-pack on a church roof. 1894Outing (U.S.) XXIV. 438/2 [In China] we overtook a beggar and his wife traveling pick-a-pack along the stone road.
γ1783Ainsworth Lat. Dict. (ed. Morell) s.v. Back, To carry on pig back, humeris..ferre. a1825Forby Voc. E. Anglia, Pig-back, on the back. 1888Voice (N.Y.) 31 May, To see us perched ‘piggy-back’ crossing the stream.
b. quasi-adj. and n. Also in reference to a thing; spec. (a) an aircraft, rocket, or the like, to which is attached another aircraft, etc., usu. for launching in mid-air; (b) a flat railway car on which a truck, container, or the like is carried.
(With quot. c 1590 cf. back n. 23 d.)
c1590Greene Fr. Bacon ii. 89 Mary sir, hee'le straight bee on your pickpacke to know whether the feminine or the masculine gender be most worthy. 1823Lamb Elia Ser. ii. New Year's Coming of Age, E'en whipt him over his shoulders pick-a-back fashion. 1864Knight Passages Work. Life I. ii. 89 A pickaback ride through the surf in a dirty fellow's grasp. 1901Punch 2 Oct. 247/1 Oh, Mr. Green,..Effie..is so miserable because she hasn't had her donkey ride. Would you mind giving her a pick-a-back? 1931R. Campbell Georgiad i. 21 The garden path—a sort of Rotten Row Where oft a merry pick-a-back they go. 1936[see mother plane s.v. mother n.1 17 a]. 1936L. A. G. Strong Last Enemy iii. 203 Ann came up. ‘Piggy-back, please,’ she said. ‘You mustn't worry poor Mr. Boyle. It's too hot.’.. Ann, hoisted on Denis's back, turned to her. 1944Sun (Baltimore) 13 July 9/2 Two Liberator crewmen with only one parachute between them made a ‘piggyback’ leap recently from a burning bomber. 1946L. E. O. Charlton Britain at War: R.A.F. & U.S.A.A.F., July 1943–Sept. 1944 306 The ‘pick-a-back’ consisting of an Me 109 fighter mounted on the back of a Ju 88... When approaching its target the Ju 88 was released and guided by remote control towards its objective. 1953Evening Jrnl. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 3 Nov. 6 No sooner had ‘piggy back railroading’ (hauling truck trailers on flat cars) been hailed by various railroads and one automotive manufacturer as a strikingly simple idea for abating highway congestion and cutting the high price of trucking, than the organized truck operators rose to denounce it. 1954Economist 13 Mar. 779/1 These ‘piggy-backs’ or ‘trailers-on-flat-cars (TOFC)’..have now become a major preoccupation of the railways. 1954Railway Age 26 July 3/2 Further expansion of piggyback by the Chicago & North Western took effect on July 15. 1954Times (Seattle) 21 Sept. 16/1 Railroads throughout the country are studying or instituting limited pickaback service. 1956Sun (Baltimore) 29 Feb. 7/3 A ‘piggyback’ experiment in which vacationists' automobiles will accompany them on train trips in Germany is planned for next summer. 1959H. Pinter Birthday Party ii. 37 Maybe I played piggy-back with you. 1960Daily Tel. 23 June 1/4 (heading) U.S. ‘pick-a-back’ spheres over Russia every 101 min. Ibid., Two ‘pick-a-back’ satellites were launched by the same rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, early today. 1961Flight LXXIX. 827/1 Under the heading ‘aerodynamic efficiency’ an interesting ‘piggyback’ vehicle was exhibited. 1965Listener 1 July 6/1 A series of pick-a-back rockets called the Precious Stones are the most important outcome. 1969[see manifest n. 3]. 1969I. & P. Opie Children's Games vi. 185 Riding on people's backs (‘Horse Race’, ‘Piggyback Race’). Ibid. vii. 217 The craze at our school is piggy-back fighting. 1969Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 28 June 18/3 Railways are currently taking pride in their new innovation, ‘piggy-back’ service, in which highway trailers..can travel across long distances hitching rides on various railroads. 1973Kingston (Ontario) Whig-Standard 21 Sept. 9/6 The CPR diesels still thunder through the hamlet with their cargoes of ‘piggy backs’, but the little station has been gone for many years now. 1974W. Foley Child in Forest i. 25 Our usual practice of running to meet him for pick-a-backs up the garden path. 1977Time 14 Feb. 54/3 The orbiter will be ‘mated’ to a carrier plane, a Boeing 747 with special mounts on top... The piggyback pair will first run up and down the Edwards runway to test for vibration and stability.
c. Comb., as piggy-back plant, a perennial herb, Tolmiea menziesii, of the family Saxifragaceæ, native to western North America and distinguished by cordate leaves that appear to grow one on top of another.
1946M. Free All about House Plants xviii. 275 The Picka-back Plant has come very much to the fore as a house plant. 1973J. L. Faust N.Y. Times Bk. House Plants 135 Piggyback plant (Tolmiea menziesii) has somewhat fuzzy leaves. 1973Hitchcock & Cronquist Flora Pacific Northwest 199 Tolmiea... Youth-on-Age; Pig-a-Back-Plant; Thousand Mothers.
d. as v. intr. and trans. To ride piggy-back; to attach on the back of; to carry or transport by means of a piggy-back method. Also fig. So ˈpiggy-backing vbl. n.
1959Wall St. Jrnl. 29 Jan. 1/1 A number of railroad and truck equipment makers have jumped into the manufacture of rail cars and trailers especially designed for piggybacking. 1960Economist 3 Sept. 894/2 The haulage industry is threatened by the rapid spread of the practice of ‘piggy-backing’—transporting a loaded lorry or trailer on a railway wagon. 1967Freight Management Jan. 48/2 Piggybacking must not be left out of any argument about future inter-modal methods of transportation. 1968Wall St. Jrnl. 25 Mar. 14/3 To the degree heroin does piggyback on marijuana, it seems more due to the law than to the pushers. 1968A. Diment Gt. Spy Race iv. 56 Mr Spont would have to piggy-back me all the way to get a commission. 1973T. H. White Making of President 1972 (1974) v. 123 They're tired of Humphrey, he's been around too long... But we have to piggyback him on local campaigns. Wherever we back a local candidate in the primary, we'll pack Hubert in on top. 1975C. Beeck in Proc. 25th Electronic Components Conf. 158/1 Selecting a shaft diameter which would accommodate a coaxial shaft inside it in case another control had to be piggy-backed to the knob. 1975Time (Canada ed.) 17 Mar. 7/1 Arctic Gas argues that the only economical way to bring Canadian gas south is by ‘piggybacking’ on a line largely given over, at first, to carrying more abundant Alaskan gas. 1976Billings (Montana) Gaz. 7 July 4-b/1 The women are content to let the men set the standards and then piggy-back on our efforts. 1977Offshore Engineer May 97/3 A free-standing well-protector jacket platform is attached or ‘piggybacked’ to the mobile platform at the dock before tow-out. 1977C. McCullough Thorn Birds ii. 21 Come on, Meggy, I'll piggyback you the rest of the way. 1979Economist 17 Nov. 79/2 Why not piggy⁓back a federal sales tax on to the levies which people are used to paying and collecting? |