Hogtown
A 19th-century nickname for Toronto. Originally an insult from smaller Ontario towns annoyed that Toronto politicians "hogged" the provincial legislature — later reinforced by the city's massive William Davies meatpacking plant. Toronto eventually owned the name instead of fighting it.
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How it's used
Words like this are about place — the specific streets, boundaries and nicknames that tell you exactly which part of the GTA someone means.
“Real ones still call it Hogtown.”
Where it comes from
Origin: 1890s political insult / meatpacking history. Like a lot of GTA slang, its exact origin is debated even among people who use it every day — see our full history of Toronto slang for the bigger picture on how this vocabulary formed.
Sources
Specific source for this entry: BlogTO — "How Toronto got the nickname Hogtown". General research sources for the whole dictionary are listed in SOURCES.md.
This word is a possible Torontle answer — the Wordle-style game built from this dictionary.
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