Idiom
if pigs had wings
Meaning
Never.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“I will clean my room if pigs had wings.”
“He thinks he will win the lottery, but that will happen if pigs had wings.”
“The politician promised to lower taxes for everyone, a feat that will occur only if pigs had wings.”
Examples
simple
“I will clean my room if pigs had wings.”
contextual
“He thinks he will win the lottery, but that will happen if pigs had wings.”
complex
“The politician promised to lower taxes for everyone, a feat that will occur only if pigs had wings.”
Origin
Attested as an anapodoton, the phrase is a shortened form of the conditional expression if pigs had wings, they would fly. It serves as a truncated reference to the inherent impossibility of the premise.
Key words
Related idioms
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