/ˈbaɪ ə ˈpɪɡ ɪn ə ˈpəʊk/
English idiom, old-fashioned. To buy or agree to something without checking it first.
Draft Not yet checked by a native English speaker.
How do people use Buy a pig in a poke
?
Still understood everywhere, but it sounds a bit old-fashioned, the kind of thing a grandparent or a newspaper columnist says. Mostly used as a warning, “don’t buy a pig in a poke”, or about a bad deal after the fact: “we bought a pig in a poke with that car”. “A pig in a poke” also works on its own as a noun for the dodgy thing itself.
Also said a pig in a poke, sell someone a pig in a poke
Buy a pig in a poke
in real sentences
-
Don’t buy a pig in a poke.
Tatoeba, sentence by lp233, CC BY 2.0 FR
-
I bought a pig in a poke yesterday.
Tatoeba, sentence by U2FS, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Buy a pig in a poke
come from?
Wikipedia dates the idiom to 1555. “Poke” meant a bag, from French “poque”, and pigs really were carried to market in sacks. The well-known story is that a crooked seller put a cat in the sack instead of a piglet, and a buyer who opened it “let the cat out of the bag”. Wikipedia notes that this explanation only shows up from the 19th century on, so treat it as a good story, not a record. The French and German versions name the cat outright.
Mistakes learners make with Buy a pig in a poke
Reading “poke” as the verb (to jab). Here it’s an old word for a bag or sack, a cousin of “pouch” and “pocket”. Learners who don’t know that sometimes change it to “a pig in a pocket”, which isn’t the idiom.
Other English idioms like Buy a pig in a poke
Spot a mistake in Buy a pig in a poke
?
Send a correction, or a sentence you’d actually say with it. Everything is read before anything on this page changes.