Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also root, pig or die) to work extremely hard, or face inevitable failure; also used as an excl. of resignation; also attrib.

1834		D. Crockett Narrative of the Life of D.C. (1934) 88: It looked like it was to be starvation any way; we therefore determined to go on the old saying, root hog or die.
1844		Yazoo City Whig (MS) 22 Mar. 1/5: Go it, Porkie! root hog, or die!
1858		‘California Stage Company’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 54: All ‘opposition’ they defy / So the people must ‘root hog or die.’.
1870		‘The Bull-Whacker’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 59: We are bold bull-whackers on whom you can rely, / We’re tough, and we can stand it, to root hog, or die.
1881		H.W. Pierson In the Brush 16: The swine were of the original ‘root-hog-or-die’ variety.
1892		Columbia Herald (TN) 6 May 1/2: They sailed off leaving me and Iky to ‘rute hog or die’.
1909		L.W. Payne Jr ‘Word-List From East Alabama’ in DN III:v 364: root hog or die, v. To work for oneself or perish. ‘He had to root hog or die.’.
1911		J. Lomax Cowboy Songs 69: It’s whack the cattle on, boys, / Root hog or die.
1924		Morell Twenty-Fifth Man in Hamilton Men of the Und. 250: From today ye can work, root hog or die.
1939		L. Short Raiders of the Rimrock 85: It’s root hog or die now, Lugan! Hell, what’s stoppin’ Sands from havin’ the whole lot of us beefed?
[1943		(con. 1861-5) song in Wiley Life of Johnny Reb 155: He always makes the Yankee cowards run hog or die].
1944		Botkin A Treasury of Amer. Folklore 571: ‘Little pig, big pig, root, hog or die,’ was a trite saying current some years ago in the daily press. It was used to express the certainty that human life depended on personal exertion.
1950		A.B. Guthrie Way West 29: I’d like him to know something besides root, hog, or die.
1974		R. Blount About Three Bricks Shy of a Load 200: Games make very crude drama indeed, because they boil down to root, hog or die, to the too-simple concept of ‘victory’ and to people trying to hurt each other in order to gain selfish ends.
1977		R. Coover Public Burning (1979) 411: No more time-outs, son, it’s [...] root-hog-or-die-time!
1991		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 578: When old Saddam Hussein / Came ’round here in the south, / We cut his pickled pecker off / And stuffed it in his mouth. / We boiled his balls for supper / An’ hung his asshole out to dry, / We told the mother-fucker / He could root, hog or die!

2. as a euph. for root v. (5a), to have sexual intercourse.

c.1920		‘Root, Hog, or Die’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 142: We went up to her room, and my prick it quickly rose, / Before I got it in the bitch, I shot it all over her clothes; / I took her in my arms, ‘Now, baby, don’t you cry, / I’ll get another hard on, and we’ll root, hog, or die.’.
1992		Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore I 580: A seven-stanza text [...] by a Texas ranger, W.C. Brach, at San Antonio, Texas, probably about 1909. [...] ‘We went up to her room, and my prick it quickly rose, / Before I got it in the bitch, I shot it all over her clothes. / I took her in my arms, Now baby, don’t you cry, / I’ll get another hard-on and we’ll root, hog or die.’.