Meaning & Analysis
He has drawn a pig from the worse pannier (basket), meaning he has received the worse or least desirable share or outcome.
Insights
Bad Luck or Unfavorable Outcome
The proverb refers to someone who ends up with the least favorable option or is dealt a poor hand in a situation—akin to getting the runt of the litter or the worst pig from the basket.
Resignation to Misfortune
Conveys a sense of resigned acceptance or rueful recognition that sometimes, despite one’s efforts, fate deals an unfavorable outcome.
Historical Rural Life
In agricultural and market settings, livestock or produce was often divided into panniers (baskets), and drawing from the 'worse' one meant receiving inferior goods. The proverb reflects the realities and anxieties of rural commerce and household division.
Folk Expression of Disappointment
The phrase became a figurative way to express disappointment, whether in marriage, fortune, or other life circumstances, and was flexible enough to apply broadly to any poor allotment.
Colloquial Sympathy and Humor
The idiom could offer wry sympathy—acknowledging shared human experience of bad luck, and using humor to soften the sting of misfortune.
Rhetorical Devices
Metaphor
Uses the imagery of livestock selection to represent broader experiences of bad luck or poor choices.
Colloquialism
The phrase’s everyday language and rural reference point make it accessible and relatable.
Synecdoche
'Pig of the worse pannier' stands for any inferior outcome, letting the concrete image stand for a wide range of disappointments.
Transcription
Quotations
And peradventure, there, he and she Wyll make me cokold, euyn to anger me And then had I a pyg in the woyrs panyer.
Who that hath either of these pygs in bre, He hath a pygge of the worse panier sure.
Related Proverbs
Original Scan
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