pig womann.
/ˈpɪɡ ˌwʊmən/, U.S. /ˈpɪɡ ˌwʊmən/ 1. A woman who sells roast pork at fairs, etc. In later use only in allusion to Jonson (see quot. 1631). rare.
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society > trade and finance > selling > seller > sellers of specific things > [noun] > seller of provisions > seller of meat > seller of cooked meat
pig woman1631
thermopolist1656
1631 B. Jonson Bartholmew Fayre ii. vi. 29 in Wks. II Smoak'd like the backside of the Pig-womans Booth, here.
1694 J. Crowne Married Beau ii. 20 I'm like Ben Johnson's Ursly, the Pig-Woman, 'Gad, I roast Pigs as well as e're I did.
1901 Jrnl. Polit. Econ. 9 594 At Bartholomew Fair, if the playwright may be trusted, there were no stands more popular than those of the gingerbread-woman and the pig-woman.
1950 Times 24 Aug. 6/6 Even in the theatre the pig woman of Miss Nuna Davey would need to be conceived on more Falstaffian lines.
2. A woman who farms or deals in pigs.
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1871 Temple Bar July 39 Brougham, having got a verdict of forty shillings for the pig woman, went back to London to defend the defamed virtue of Caroline, Queen of Great Britain.
1897 W. S. Gilbert Fortune Hunter iii. 44 After all, who's better than an English lady? Not a Chicago pig-woman, whomsoever she marries!
1922 Times 4 Oct. 9/7 An educated girl requires a situation as pig woman, medium herd.
2003 Guardian (Nexis) 18 Apr. (Friday Pages section) 8 The Hall-Mills murder, one of the most famous trials in New Jersey—the woman implicated in that was a pig woman.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2006; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.1631