pork: [13] Latin porcus ‘pig’ went back to a prehistoric Indo-European *porko-, which also produced Russian porosenok ‘pig’, Irish orc ‘pig’, and English farrow. It passed into Old French as porc, which English adopted as a term for the ‘flesh of pigs used as food’. Derivatives that have made it to English include porcelain, porcupine, and porpoise. => farrow, porcelain, porcupine, porpoise
pork (n.)
c. 1300 (early 13c. in surname Porkuiller), "flesh of a pig as food," from Old French porc "pig, swine, boar," and directly from Latin porcus "pig, tame swine," from PIE *porko- "young swine" (cognates: Umbrian purka; Old Church Slavonic prase "young pig;" Lithuanian parsas "pig;" and Old English fearh, Middle Dutch varken, both from Proto-Germanic *farhaz).
Pork barrel in the literal sense is from 1801, American English; meaning "state's financial resources (available for distribution)" is attested from 1907 (in full, national pork barrel); it was noted as an expression of U.S. President President William Howard Taft:
"Now there is a proposition that we issue $500,000,000 or $1,000,000,000 of bonds for a waterway, and then that we just apportion part to the Mississippi and part to the Atlantic, a part to the Missouri and a part to the Ohio. I am opposed to it. I am opposed to it because it not only smells of the pork barrel, but it will be the pork barrel itself. Let every project stand on its bottom." ["The Outlook," Nov. 6, 1909, quoting Taft]
The magazine article that includes the quote opens with:
We doubt whether any one knows how or when, or from what application of what story, the phrase "the National pork barrel" has come into use. If not a very elegant simile, it is at least an expressive one, and suggests a graphic picture of Congressmen eager for local advantage going, one after another, to the National pork barrel to take away their slices for home consumption.
Pork in this sense is attested from 1862 (compare figurative use of bacon). Pork chop is attested from 1858. Pork pie is from 1732; pork-pie hat (1855) originally described a woman's style popular c. 1855-65, so called for its shape.
双语例句
1. Legs of pork were cured and smoked over the fire.
在火上熏制猪腿。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Stir the pork about until it turns white all the way through.
不停搅动猪肉，直到它全部变白为止。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Pork-barrel politicians hand out rents to win votes and influence people.
