Word.ws English Dictionary

make a pig's ear of

make a pig's ear of verb: to do badly; to make a mess of.

Verb

make a pig's ear of (third-person singular simple present makes a pig's ear of, present participle making a pig's ear of, simple past and past participle made a pig's ear of)

  1. (UK, idiomatic, transitive) To do badly; to make a mess of.
    • England responded with goals of their own from Theo Walcott and Danny Welbeck and, on the balance of play, deserved the victory. Yet there were long spells when they threatened to make a pig's ear of it.14 August 2013, Daniel Taylor, “Rickie Lambert's debut goal gives England victory over Scotland”, in The Guardian
    • Instead, he had lain awake for hours, knowing he'd made a pig's ear of everything, and trying to think of a way to sort things out.2003, Kate Walker, Desert Affair, →ISBN, page 140

Forms of make a pig's ear of

third-person singular presentmakes a pig's ear of
present participlemaking a pig's ear of
past participlemade a pig's ear of
pastmade a pig's ear of

Questions about make a pig's ear of

What does make a pig's ear of mean?
Make a pig's ear of means to do badly; to make a mess of.
What part of speech is make a pig's ear of?
Make a pig's ear of is a verb.
What is the past tense of make a pig's ear of?
The past tense of make a pig's ear of is made a pig's ear of.

Words near make a pig's ear of in the dictionary

  1. make a noise in the world
  2. make a nuisance of oneself
  3. make a pass
  4. make a pig of oneself
  5. make a pig out of oneself
  6. make a pig's ear of
  7. make a pile
  8. make a play
  9. make a point
  10. make a poor fist of
  11. make a production out of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: make a pig's ear of (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-make a pig's ear of.ogg.

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