# pork

Pronunciation: US say "PORK" /poɹk/; UK say "PAWK" /pɔːk/

## Noun

1. The meat of a pig, eaten as food.
   - Simple: Meat that comes from a pig.
   - _She marinated the pork overnight in garlic and lime juice._
   - _Some religions forbid eating pork._
2. Government money that a member of Congress seeks for special interests or for voters back home rather than for the good of the whole country. *(slang, US)*
   - Simple: Government money a lawmaker asks for to help special groups or their own area, not the whole country.
   - _Critics said the defense bill was stuffed with pork for the chairman's home state._
   - _Both parties promise to cut pork, then quietly add their own projects to the budget._
4. The police and others in law enforcement, or anyone seen as siding with the prosecution of criminals. *(dialectal, Multicultural London English)*
   - Simple: The police, or people who take the side of the police against criminals.
   - _Pork pulled up outside the chicken shop, so everyone scattered._
   - _He's been chatting to the pork, so nobody on the estate trusts him now._
5. In chess, a position that subjects a player's pieces to a pin and a fork simultaneously.
   - Simple: In chess, a position where a player's pieces are caught in a pin and a fork at the same time.
   - _Black walked into a pork and had no way to save every piece._
   - _Spotting the pork too late, she saw that her knight was pinned and her rooks forked at once._

## Verb

3. To have sex with someone, used mostly with a man as the subject. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To have sex with someone, usually said about a man.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–4** — From Middle English pork, porc, via Anglo-Norman, from Old French porc (“swine, hog, pig; pork”), from Latin porcus (“domestic hog, pig”); it is cognate with Old English fearh (“piglet”) and a doublet of farrow. It has been used in English since the 14th century and as a term of abuse since the 17th century, and the US political sense is related to pork barrel.
**Meaning 5** — A blend of pin + fork.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/pork (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).