piker
/ˈpaɪkə(ɹ)/
piker noun: a soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.
Noun
piker (plural pikers)
- 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.1974, Thomas Keneally, Blood Red, Sister Rose, page 82
- 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.2008, Cathal J. Nolan, Wars of the Age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization, page 363
- One who bets or gambles only with small amounts of money.
- “[…] Them rich fellers, they don't make no bad breaks with their money. They watch it all th' time b'cause they know blame well there ain't hardly room fer their feet fer th' pikers an' tin-horns an' thimble-riggers what are layin' fer 'em. […]”1899, Stephen Crane, chapter 1, in Twelve O'Clock
- 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?”1921, B. M. Bower, Cow Country, published 2004, page 79
- Antonyms:
- high roller
- 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.”1916, Richard Harding Davis, The Man Who Could Not Lose, published 2008, page 22
- 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.2000, Peter L. Bernstein, The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession, page 218
- Antonyms:
- spendthrift, baller
- An amateur.
- 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.’2002, Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country, Allen & Unwin, published 2003, page 269
- 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!
- One who pikes (quits or backs out of a promise).
- Synonyms:
- break-promise, reneger, break-vow, oathbreaker
- A male freshman at Cornell University.
- A tramp; a vagrant.
- Synonyms:
- pike
Proper noun capitalized: Piker
Piker
- 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.2022 July 22, Alec Mullins, “NRG Bucke kicks off after xQc calls him an “NPC” for siding with Andrew Tate”, in Dexerto, archived from the original on 25 Sep 2022
Examples of piker in a sentence
- Say, ain′t you pikers a-goin′ to bid higher than that for this?" And another flick of her skirts.1999, Lael Morgan, Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush, page 96:
- Whatever else this cupcake might be up to, she was no piker.2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage, published 2007, page 604:
Synonyms of piker
Antonyms
Forms of piker
| plural | pikers |
|---|
Origin of piker
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.
Borrowed from Turkish Piker.
Words that rhyme with piker
Questions about piker
- What does piker mean?
- Piker means a soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.
- How do you use piker in a sentence?
- Say, ain′t you pikers a-goin′ to bid higher than that for this?" And another flick of her skirts.
- What part of speech is piker?
- Piker can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce piker?
- Piker is pronounced /ˈpaɪkə(ɹ)/.
- What is the plural of piker?
- The plural of piker is pikers.
Words near piker in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: piker (page history and authors); Piker (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-piker.ogg.
Cite this entry: “piker.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/piker. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.