piker
[ pahy-ker ]
/ ˈpaɪ kər /
noun Informal.
a person who does anything in a contemptibly small or cheap way.
a stingy, tight-fisted person; tightwad.
a person who gambles, speculates, etc., in a small, cautious way.
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RELATED WORDS
deserter, dropout, goldbrick, wimp, slacker, shirker, goof-off, tightwad, Scrooge, skinflint, goldbricker
Nearby words
- pikeblenny,
- piked dogfish,
- pikelet,
- pikeman,
- pikeperch,
- pikes peak,
- pikestaff,
- pikesville,
- pikey,
- piking
Origin of piker
SYNONYMS FOR piker
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for piker
piker
/ (ˈpaɪkə) /
noun slang
Australian a wild bullock
Australian and NZ a useless person; failure
US, Australian and NZ a lazy person; shirker
a mean person
Word Origin for piker
C19: perhaps related to pike ³
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
piker
"miserly person," 1872, formerly "poor migrant to California" (1860), earlier pike (1854), perhaps originally "vagrant who wanders the pike (n.1)" (which is the notion in Sussex dialectal piker "vagrant, tramp, gypsy," 1838), but Barnhart, OED and others suggest the American English word ultimately is a reference to people from Pike County, Missouri.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper