phrases, sayings, idioms and expressions at  The meaning and
origin of the expression: Piggyback  Browse phrases beginning
with:     On the back and shoulders of another person.
PiggybackWhenever I include a derivation of a single word like
piggyback on this site, which is about phrases and sayings after
all, I always feel obliged to justify it. As we will see below,
'piggyback' began its life as two words, so lets start from
there.  What's the connection to pigs and to other 'piggy'
phrases like 'on the pig's back', 'high on the hog' etc? Well,
there isn't one - because 'piggyback' has nothing to do with
pigs. In the 20th century, we settled on the 'piggyback'
spelling, but the term has existed in myriad forms over the
years - 'a pick-apack', 'pick-a-back', 'pig-aback' and so on.
The earliest forms of 'piggyback' were the mediaeval 'pick back'
and 'pick pack'. These are cited within a year of each other in
the 1560s, both in essays on religious themes:  John Rastell's A
confutation of a sermon pronounced