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piker

noun
/ˈpaɪkə(ɹ)/

Etymology

From pike + -er. In some senses, it has been linked etymologically to the word pikey as well as to Pike County in eastern Missouri https://web.archive.org/web/20051111194645/http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/p/p0300200.html. In the latter instance the term originally denoted poor immigrants to California.

  1. borrowed from Piker

Definitions

  1. A soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.

    • Upstairs in a waiting room there were pikers whose tunics echoed Baudricourt′s gold lion shield painted up and down the rafters.
    • By 1600, the ratio of pikers to gunmen was roughly 3:2. By mid-century the ratio was only 1:2, and by 1670 there was just one piker to every three gunmen in the French Army.

  2. One who bets or gambles only with small amounts of money.

    • Bud swelled his chest and laid his hand on Jeff′s shoulder. “Just to show you I′m not a piker,” he cried recklessly, “I′ll bet you twenty-five dollars I can beat your Skeeter with my Smoky horse that I rode in here. Is it a go?”

  3. A stingy person

    A stingy person; a cheapskate.

    • “And if you′ve got to be a piker,” said Dolly, “don′t be ashamed to be a piker. We′re not spending a hundred dollars because we can afford it, but because you dreamt a dream.”
    • The golden nuggets in the stream at Sutter′s Mill in California made Croesus look like a piker, and Australia, the Klondike, and South Africa were yet to come.
    • Whatever else this cupcake might be up to, she was no piker. For everything the Q′s ordered, she added on more of the same.
  4. ›+ 7 more definitions

    1. An amateur.

    2. A bullock living in the wild. (Also used attributively.)

      • ‘There's always a few old piker bullocks find their way into this country. But mostly cattle don't come this far.’

    3. One who refuses to go out with friends, or leaves a party early

      One who refuses to go out with friends, or leaves a party early; a spoilsport or "chicken".

      • Mate, don't be a piker! Come to Angie′s birthday party tonight!

    4. One who pikes (quits or backs out of a promise).

    5. A male freshman at Cornell University.

    6. A tramp

      A tramp; a vagrant.

    7. A surname from Turkish.

      • While watching the VOD later, xQc insinuated that Fortnite pro Bucke was an "NPC" who was only there to defend Tate and not give Piker a fair shot – and what resulted afterward has caused quite a stir in its own right.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for piker. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA