guinea pig

noun

|Updated on: 17 Jul 2018

Examples: guinea pig in a Sentence

Definition of guinea pig

1 : a small stout-bodied short-eared tailless domesticated rodent (Cavia porcellus) of South American origin often kept as a pet and widely used in biological research — called also cavy

2 : a subject of research, experimentation, or testing

See guinea pig defined for English-language learners

See guinea pig defined for kids

Examples of guinea pig in a Sentence

He volunteered to act as a guinea pig in the experiment.

Recent Examples of guinea pig from the Web

She will also be mourned by her beloved pets, her German Shepherd Sophia and her guinea pig Marvin.

— hartford courant, courant.com, "Ashley L. Rakus," 10 July 2018
This makes drivers, and anyone encountering these cars on the road, guinea pigs who are helping to train the artificial intelligence Tesla ultimately hopes to use for a fully autonomous driving system.

— christopher mims, WSJ, "In Self-Driving-Car Road Test, We Are the Guinea Pigs," 13 May 2018
The 641 guinea pigs in the six-week test program were mailed postcards alerting them that county employees would be looking in their recycling bins on Thursdays, the subdivision’s usual collection day for recyclables.

— stephen hudak, OrlandoSentinel.com, "Orange County peering into recycling bins to check for no-nos like greasy pizza boxes, plastic bags," 28 June 2018
And throughout it all, Kanye has kept his promise with his album announcements: Pusha-T, the guinea pig of the seven song experiment, released DAYTONA on May 25, and Kanye put out his eighth studio album Ye on June 1.

— eric diep, Billboard, "Kanye West & Kid Cudi Bring Out the Best In Each Other on 'Kids See Ghosts' Album," 8 June 2018
Casper’s $35, guinea pig-friendly Nap Pillow is available now on the company’s website.

— don reisinger, Fortune, "The Casper Nap Pillow Is Your Next $35 Travel Companion," 5 June 2018
To do that, Xhaka has become a sleep science guinea pig of sorts.

— eric niiler, WIRED, "Can PJs and Sound Sleep Lead to a World Cup Victory?," 14 June 2018
Two children, their three dogs and a guinea pig safely left the home after the passerby knocked on the front door, alerting them to the fire, Schulte said.

— amy lavalley, Post-Tribune, "No injuries reported in Center Township fire," 14 June 2018
Second: This is the same company whose future self-flying taxis DFW signed up to be guinea pigs for in two years?

— ed wallace\, star-telegram, "Technology’s Blown Engine," 8 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'guinea pig.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of guinea pig

1664

in the meaning defined at sense 1

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GUINEA PIG Defined for English Language Learners

guinea pig

noun

Definition of guinea pig for English Language Learners

: a small animal that is often kept as a pet
: a person or thing used for testing something

GUINEA PIG Defined for Kids

guinea pig

noun

Definition of guinea pig for Students

: a small stocky South American animal that is a rodent with short ears and a very short tail and is often kept as a pet

Medical Dictionary

guinea pig

noun guin·ea pig \ ˈgin-ē-ˌ \

medical Definition of guinea pig

: a small stout-bodied short-eared nearly tailless domesticated rodent of the genus Cavia (C. cobaya) often kept as a pet and widely used in biological research — called also cavy