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guinea

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guinea pig

Someone or something used as the subject of an experiment. Jane used her husband as a guinea pig to try her new baked chicken recipe. Craig earned a little extra money by signing up to be a guinea pig in some local clinical studies.

See also: guinea, pig

Serve as a guinea pig

Fig. [for someone] to be experimented on; to allow some sort of test to be performed on one. (Alludes to the use of guinea pigs for biological experiments.) Try it on someone else! I don't want to serve as a guinea pig! Jane agreed to serve as a guinea pig. She'll be the one to try out the new flavor of ice cream.

See also: guinea, pig, serve

a guinea pig

if someone is used as a guinea pig, new ideas or products are tested on them They're looking for volunteers to act as guinea pigs for a new AIDS vaccine.

See also: guinea, pig