piker
Americannoun
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a person who does anything in a contemptibly small or cheap way.
-
a stingy, tight-fisted person; tightwad.
- Synonyms:
- skinflint, penny pincher, cheapskate
-
a person who gambles, speculates, etc., in a small, cautious way.
noun
-
a wild bullock
-
a useless person; failure
-
a lazy person; shirker
-
a mean person
Etymology
Origin of piker
1275–1325; Middle English: petty thief, equivalent to pik ( en ) to pick 1 + -er 1; compare dial. (N England, Scots, Hiberno-English ) pike to pick 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Michael Bloomberg, another SPC, with his own media empire, makes Schultz look like a piker by comparison.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 16, 2019
But even he was a piker compared with wartime presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 8, 2014
The Rapture is a piker in this film; of its reported $16 million budget, roughly $15 million appears to have gone to Cage on a dare that he maintain a straight face.
From Chicago Tribune ● Oct. 2, 2014
Although Lindsey soon found himself out of a job as a result, he turned out to be a piker.
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2010
He stood still a minute, and almost turned white and then what do you think the piker did?
From Living Up to Billy by Cooper, Elizabeth
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
