What does Piggy Bank mean?

A Piggy Bank is a storage container for coins, typically used by children to teach them lessons in saving. Some boxes have locks or need to be broken to allow the money to be removed, while others have keys or other locking mechanism meaning a parent has control on when it can be opened.

The typical sort of money box is a Piggy bank, a plastic, steel or porcelain pig shaped container.

You won't believe me - if you hear how the name piggy bank came into existence...

In Middle English, "pygg" referred to a type of clay used for making various household objects such as jars. People often saved money in kitchen pots and jars made of pygg, called "pygg jars". By the 18th Century, the spelling of "pygg" had changed and the term "pygg jar" had evolved to "pig bank."

This name may have caught on because the pig banks were mostly used by children, and the pig is a child-friendly shape that is easy to fashion out of clay. Once the meaning had transferred from the substance to the shape, piggy banks began to be made from other substances, including glass, plaster, and plastic.

Another reason for the name piggy bank that has been put forward is based upon the idea that the coins given to the piggy bank represent the food fed to a pig by the farmer. It costs the farmer money to feed the pig which he does not get back until the pig is slaughtered for the meat (represented by breaking the piggy bank) which the farmer can then sell.