/pig"ee bak'/ , adv.
1. on the back or shoulders: The little girl rode piggyback on her father.
adj.
2. astride the back or shoulders: a piggyback ride.
3. sharing commercial time, space, etc.: piggyback advertising.
4. carryable or attachable: a piggyback turbine unit.
5. added or tacked on; supplementary: a piggyback clause.
6. noting or pertaining to the carrying of one vehicle or the like by another, as the carrying of loaded truck trailers on flatcars.
v.t.
7. to attach or ally to as or as if a part of the same thing: to piggyback human rights agreements with foreign aid.
8. to carry (somebody) on the back or shoulders.
9. to carry (truck trailers) by railroad on flatcars.
10. Radio and Television Slang. to advertise (two or more products) in the same commercial.
v.i.
11. to be transported aboard or atop another carrier: The space shuttle piggybacked on the airplane.
12. to use, appropriate, or exploit the availability, services, or facilities of another: private clinics piggybacking on federal health-care facilities.
13. to carry truck trailers by railroad on flatcars.
n.
14. a house trailer designed to fit over a pickup truck.
15. a truck trailer carried on a flatcar.
16. anything that operates in connection with or as part of another.
Also, pickaback (for defs. 1, 2).
[ 1580-90; alter. of PICKABACK ]