Where did the term guinea pig come from?

Both 'guinea' and 'pig' seem to stem from simple, but mistaken, associations. The name 'guinea pig' dates from the 17th century and the first record of it (as 'ginny-pig') is in William Harvey's medical textbook Anatomical exercitations, concerning the generation of living creatures, 1653. The 'guinea' part of the name is perplexing. read more

Guinea pigs might not be the most common experimental subjects today, but we have to look at how common they were when the term was first coined, which was many decades ago, as Etymonline points out: In the extended sense of "one subjected to an experiment" it is first recorded 1920, because they were commonly used in vivisection experiments. read more

Guinea pigs have also been used in scientific research over the centuries, and “guinea pig” is often used to mean one who participates in an experiment. This sense of the term, which was first recorded in the early 20th century, is still around, though mice and rats have largely replaced guinea pigs in laboratories. read more