Origin and history of swinery

Old English swin "domestic pig, hog, sow; wild boar" (commonly used in a plural sense, of such animals collectively), from Proto-Germanic *sweina- (source also of Old Saxon, Old Frisian Middle Low German, Old High German swin, Middle Dutch swijn, Dutch zwijn, German Schwein, Old Norse, Swedish, Danish svin), neuter adjective (with suffix *-ino-). This is from PIE *su- "pig" (see sow (n.)).

The native word, it has been largely ousted by pig (n.1). Applied to persons from late 14c., "mean or degraded, sensual and coarse." The phrase pearls before swine (mid-14c.) is from Matthew vii.6; an early English formation of it was:

Ne ge ne wurpen eowre meregrotu toforan eowrum swynon. [c. 1000]

The Latin word in the Gospel verse was confused in French with marguerite "daisy" (the "pearl" of the field), and in Dutch the expression became "roses before swine." Swine-drunk is from 1590s (Nashe). Swine-flu is attested from 1921. Earlier terms for infectious pig diseases include swine-plague (1891); swine-pox was originally "chicken pox" (1520s); it is attested from 1764 as a disease of swine.

word-forming element making nouns meaning "place for, art of, condition of, quantity of," from Middle English -erie, from Latin -arius (see -ary). Also sometimes in modern colloquial use "the collectivity of" or "an example of."