Definition of guinea pig

The origin of the term "guinea pig" can be traced back to the Elizabethan era in England, during the 16th century. At that time, the British Crown was expanding its trading activities to the West African coast where gold and slaves were being captured. One of the most common currencies used to purchase African slaves during this time was the guinea, which was equivalent to one pound and one shilling. When scientists began to use small animals as test subjects for medical research, they required a term to describe these animals. Remembering that the British colonial authorities had used guinea to pay for West African monkeys and other small animals, they decided to adopt the term "guinea pig" to describe these new laboratory animals. Interestingly, the first guinea pigs in Europe were not the small rodents that we are familiar with today, but rather, larger animals that resembled a cross between a rabbit and a rodent. It was not until the 19th century that the smaller guinea pig began to be used as a lab animal due to its smaller size and docile behavior. Today, the term "guinea pig" is still commonly used to refer to these small rodents, despite the fact that they are not native to Guinea and are not related in any way to the African currency that gave them their name. The term has simply become entrenched in popular parlance, and most people are too familiar with it to think critically about its origins.