To make one’s way as a hog does. Hence the phrase, “Root, hog, or die.”
1833. I started mighty poor, and have been rooting ’long ever since.—‘Sketches of D. Crockett,’ p. 116 (N.Y.). (Italics in the original.)
1833. I was rooting my way to the fire, not in a good humour.—Id., p. 164. (Italics in the original.)
1848. I wish to ask the gentleman if the Whigs are the only party he can think of, who sometimes turn old horses out to root. Is not a certain Martin Van Buren an old horse, which your own party have turned out to root? And is he not rooting, a little to your discomfort, about now?—Mr. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, House of Repr., July 27: Congressional Globe, p. 1042, Appendix.
1836. Go it with a looseness—root little pig, or die.—W. T. Porter, ed., ‘A Quarter Race in Kentucky,’ etc., p. 18 (1846).
1853. Obliged to go upon the root-hog-or-die principle.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iii. 195.
1857. [He was] making a furious attempt to sing the words of the ‘Evening Hymn to the Virgin’ to the classic air of ‘Root, Hog, or Die.’—Knick. Mag., xlix. 421 (April).
1859. One Ohio wagon bears the inscription, ‘Root Hog or die.’—A. D. Richardson, ‘Beyond the Mississippi,’ p. 166.
1870. ‘Root hog, or die.’ [This is the refrain of each of the nine verses of ‘The Bull-Whacker’s Epic.’]—J. H. Beadle, ‘Life in Utah,’ p. 227 (Phila., &c.).
