PIGS MIGHT FLY

THE IDIOM ‘Pigs might fly’ is a humorous/sarcastic remark, used ironically to express disbelief or to indicate the unlikeliness of some event or to mock the credulity of others.

For example, “I might wake up early tomorrow to clean my room”. “Yes, you’ll do that when pigs fly”.

The general consensus is that the term originated either in Germany or Scotland, as there are plenty of examples of its use as a way to describe something that is physically impossible.

A Scottish proverb written in an edition of John Withal’s EnglishLatin dictionary for children in 1586 says: “pigs fly in the air with their tails forward”. If they did indeed fly, the proverb argues, flying backwards would seem a small extra feat.

Flying pigs appeared in print in the UK quite often throughout the 19th century. The Illustrated Times referred to them in an issue in August 1855:

...pigs might fly. An elephant, too, might dance on the tight-rope.

Lewis Carroll too used it in

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865:

“I’ve a right to think,” said Alice sharply... “Just about as much right,” said the Duchess, “as pigs have to fly.”

Other forms that have appeared at various times include and pigs could fly if they had wings, and pigs may fly, but they are very unlikely birds.

In 1909, in a jocular attempt to prove that pigs can take a flight, the pioneer aviator Baron Brabazon of Tara took a piglet aloft in his private biplane, strapped into a wastepaper basket.