Hog
seems to refer to age more than to any specific animal. Thus, boars of the second year, sheep between the time of their being weaned and shorn, colts, and bullocks a year old, are all called hogs or hoggets. A boar three years old is a “hog-steer.”
⁂ Some say a hogget is a sheep after its first shearing, but a “hogget-fleece” is the first shearing.
To go the whole hog. An American expression meaning unmixed democratical principles. It is used in England to signify a “thorough goer” of any kind. In Virginia the dealer asks the retail butcher if “he means to go the whole hog, or to take only certain joints, and he regulates his price accordingly.” (Men and Manners of America.)
⁂ Mahomet forbade his followers to eat one part of the pig, but did not particularise what part he intended. Hence, strict Mahometans abstain from pork altogether, but those less scrupulous eat any part they fancy. Cowper refers to this in the lines:
