Wigan

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A industrial town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan in Greater Manchester, northwest England, known for its rugby league club
2. A former coal-mining and textile town in northwest England, situated within the Greater Manchester metropolitan county
3. An English town in the northwest of England, historically tied to coal mining and now part of Greater Manchester

Etymology: The word "Wigan" is a place name, and the town it names sits in Greater Manchester in northwest England. The name is older than the town's current status as a sprawling industrial borough, and it has been attached to the place for many centuries, though its exact meaning has been debated by scholars. Because the word is simply the town's name, its story is really the story of the place, and that is why the usual pattern of a word passing through several languages does not apply here. Wigan's modern fame rests largely on its coal mining and textile past, which made it one of the industrial centres of Lancashire. Its rugby league club, Wigan Warriors, has given the name a second life far beyond the town, so that to many people the word now signals sport before geography. Used as a common noun, it refers to the place itself and to nothing else.