pollywog
English
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pollywog
Where it comes from
From earlier polwigge, from Middle English polwygle, equal to poll (“head”) + wiggle.
noun pollywogs · polliwog · porwiggle · porwigle · poliwag · polliwag
- A tadpole. So Tommy sang the following verse: “The cold got worse, The frog got hoarse, Till croaking he scared a polliwog!”
- A sailor who has not yet crossed the equator.
- An untrustworthy person, especially a politician.
verb pollywogs · pollywogging · pollywogged · polliwog · porwiggle
- To collect mussels, clams, etc. in shallow water using one's hands. She was a ninety-year-old Irish lady, and knew more about the river than anyone I’d met. She knew every tow ever to pass by her house, and told me stories of pollywogging when she was a girl. When she wasn’t hunting clams, she was fishing cats, and knew every beach, island and milemarker on the rive
- To move in the manner of a tadpole; to zigzag, undulate. Crossing the goal line, [Billy "White Shoes"] Johnson was automatically transformed in to a kind of dancing cartoon: legs pollywogging back and forth like plastic limbs, knees—at least before some injuries—seemingly flexing in all planes, football held aloft in one hand.
Talk about this word "pollywog." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/pollywog. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. pollywog. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/pollywog "pollywog." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/pollywog.Cite this
@misc{pollywog_2026,
title = {pollywog},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/pollywog},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
