Booby prize

A consolation prize is a symbolic price, not the winner, but the loser of a game or competition gets.

His assignment is to console the losers and to encourage him to be there again in the next competition. Sometimes, all participants will receive consolation prizes.

Examples

• The Roman poet Virgil writes in his epic Aeneid in the 5th song: " Exhibiting he immediately ordered the two predatory pricing, a bull, decorated with gilded horns and napkins, for the winner, for the vanquished as a consolation prize a sword together with magnificent helmet. "
• The loser got in the Middle Ages as a consolation prize in a shooting match or race often a pig. Therefore, probably dates have the German phrase pig.