Definition

1. Noun:
   • A small, tailless rodent often kept as a pet: A stout-bodied, domesticated rodent of the species Cavia porcellus, frequently kept as a household pet.
   • An experimental subject: A person or thing used as the subject of research, testing, or observation.

Usage Examples

• Noun (Animal):
  • My daughter loves her guinea pig.
  • Guinea pigs are herbivores and need plenty of hay.
• Noun (Experimental Subject):
  • Volunteers acted as guinea pigs for the new vaccine trial.
  • The team used the prototype as a guinea pig to test the software's limits.

Advanced Usage

• "to be a guinea pig": To serve as a test subject, often voluntarily.
  • I agreed to be a guinea pig for my friend's culinary experiment.
• "human guinea pig": Explicitly refers to a person used in medical or scientific research.
  • Ethical guidelines are crucial when someone becomes a human guinea pig.

Variants and Related Words

• Cavy: The biological family name for rodents including the guinea pig.
• Test subject: A more general term for any person or animal used in an experiment.
• Lab rat: A colloquial term for an experimental subject, drawing a parallel to another common research animal.

Synonyms

• Subject (as in a research subject).
• Experimental subject.
• Test case.

Related Idioms

• "To feel like a guinea pig": To feel that one is being used for testing purposes, often without full consent or consideration.
  • With all these new office policies, the staff feel like guinea pigs.

Noun

1. stout-bodied nearly tailless domesticated cavy; often kept as a pet and widely used in research
2. a person who is subjected to experimental or other observational procedures; someone who is an object of investigation
   • the subjects for this investigation were selected randomly
   • the cases that we studied were drawn from two different communities