pika

[ pahy-kuh ]

noun
  1. any of several small, brown to gray tailless mammals of the genus Ochotona, resembling rabbits with short ears and legs and inhabiting western mountains of North America and parts of eastern Europe and Asia.

Origin of pika

1
1820–30; recorded by the German naturalist P.S. Pallas (1741–1811) as the name for the animal in Evenki; compare Evenki (N Baikal dial.) pikačān a name for the tree creeper (Certhia familiaris), apparently based on Russian píkatʾ to squeak, peep (compare Russian pishchúkha a name for both the tree creeper and the pika, which emits a shrill sound)

Words Nearby pika

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use pika in a sentence

  • And that is how Little Chief the pika learned to make hay while the sun shone in the days of plenty.

    Mother West Wind "Where" Stories | Thornton W. Burgess
  • On the wildest and most desolate peaks and rock piles is found the cony or pika or "rock rabbit" as it is variously called.

    The Lake of the Sky | George Wharton James
  • Sense of smell was used by an M. e. muricus that Dixon (1931:72) watched as the ermine followed a three-fourths-grown pika.

    American Weasels | E. Raymond Hall
  • The pikas worked a relay system and the weasel abandoned the trail when the fourth pika became the object of the chase.

    American Weasels | E. Raymond Hall

British Dictionary definitions for pika

pika

/ (ˈpaɪkə) /


noun
  1. any burrowing lagomorph mammal of the family Ochotonidae of mountainous regions of North America and Asia, having short rounded ears, a rounded body, and rudimentary tail: Also called: cony

Origin of pika

1
C19: from Tungusic piika

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012