pike
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /paɪk/
rhymes: -aɪk
Forms: form: pikes
form: piking
form: piked
form: piked
Etymology: From Middle English pyke, pyk, pik, pike (“pike; sharp point, iron tip of a staff or spear, pointed toe of an item of footwear; sharp tool; mountain, peak”), from Old English pīc (“pointed object, pick axe”), and Middle French pique (“long thrusting weapon”), from Old French pic (“sharp point, spike”); both ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *pīk, from Proto-Germanic *pīkaz, *pīkō (“sharp point, pike, peak”), related to pick with a narrower meaning.
The word is cognate with Middle Dutch pecke, peke, picke (modern Dutch piek), German Pike, Norwegian pik, Danish pig, and possibly Old Irish pīk. It is a doublet of pique.
The diving or gymnastics position is probably from tapered appearance of the body when the position is executed.
The carnivorous freshwater fish is probably derived from the “sharp point, spike” senses, due to the fish’s pointed jaws.
The verb sense “to quit or back out of a promise” may be from the sense of taking up pilgrim's staff or pike and leaving on a pilgrimage; and compare Middle English pī̆ken (“to go, remove oneself”) and Old Danish pikke af (“to go away”).
Senses: examples: text: Soon after the general marched from Kilcullen, the rebels plundered all the houſes of the proteſtants in it and its vicinity, and murdered ſuch of the inhabitants as could not make their eſcape. […] They piked out one eye of a Mrs. Burchell, aged ninety; they alſo aſſaſſinated ſome wounded ſoldiers who had been left in the town, and Mr. John Cheney at Donard.
ref: 1801, Richard Musgrave, “The Breaking-out of the Rebellion”, in Memoirs of the Different Rebellions in Ireland, […], Dublin: Printed by Robert Marchbank, for John Milliken, […] and John Stockdale, […], →OCLC, pages 260–261:
text: They were armed with pikes, which were red with the blood of those they had just murdered. As Mr. Gurley was led toward them, they set up a shout: "O boys, here comes Gurley, the heretic. Pike him! pike him! pike the heretic dog!"
ref: 1854, L[eonard] B. Gurley, chapter XV, in Memoir of Rev. William Gurley, Late of Milan, Ohio, […], Cincinnati, Oh.: Printed for the author, at the Methodist Book Concern […], →OCLC, page 178:
glosses: To prod, attack, or injure someone with a pike.
examples: text: In the early stages he can do this by bending at the elbows (no more than 90) as he pikes the legs and straightens the arms in co-ordination with the upward swing of the cast, so that the whole body is extended as he reaches handstand.
ref: 1979, Peter Tatlow, editor, Gymnastics: All the Beauty and Skills of This Thrilling Sport, Auckland: McGraw-Hill, →ISBN:
text: At the front of her swing she pikes to wrap her legs under the low bar.
ref: 1980, Karen Folger Jacobs, The Story of a Young Gymnast: Tracee Talavera, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 98:
text: She stood on the block bending slowly; her hands now on the front of the blocks, she dove straight out. Piking, she came up doing the stroke she was famous for—the butterfly.
ref: 2012, Charles Fierro, “Tom”, in Dinkletown Road, [Bloomington, Ind.]: Xlibris, →ISBN, page 50:
text: A diver jumps off the 3 m platform. She is in a stretched-out position (a layout) and barely rotating at first. Then she flexes at the hips and folds herself in half (she pikes), and her rotation speeds up as if by magic.
ref: 2013, Peter M[erton] McGinnis, Biomechanics of Sport and Exercise, 3rd edition, Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, →ISBN, page 196:
topics: diving
gymnastics
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To assume a pike position.
examples: text: I put the temporary squinch on the rum bug when I got there and piked along at a ten-cent table with the last two dollars I had.
ref: 1900, Clarence Louis Cullen, Tales of the Ex-tanks: A Book of Hard-luck Stories, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap […], →OCLC, page 339:
text: Not that my wife is an inveterate gambler; as a matter of fact the poor kid hasn't any card sense at all and doesn't even care for it. She only piked along because I—I compelled her to.
ref: 1920, Isabel Ostrander, “The Lure of Chance”, in How Many Cards?, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, […], →OCLC, page 188:
text: I found no difficulty in obtaining admission to the Navarre's long gambling room, where I "piked" by placing two-bit bets on the numbered roulette board.
ref: 1964, Gilbert Patten (“Burt L. Standish”), edited by Harriet Hinsdale, assisted by Tony London, Frank Merriwell’'s “Father”: An Autobiography, Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, →OCLC, page 208:
topics: gambling
games
glosses: To bet or gamble with only small amounts of money.
examples: text: Don’t pike on me like you did last time!
text: —But [Albert] Camus piked out, said Carole. [Jean-Paul] Sartre and that lot got pissed off with him, he stood off from the war, he wouldn't oppose it.
ref: 2002, Sylvia Lawson, How Simone de Beauvoir Died in Australia: Stories and Essays, Sydney, N.S.W.: UNSW Press, →ISBN, page 151:
text: [William] Holman accepted the challenge while [John] Norton ‘piked out’; nevertheless Holman won Cootamundra against a strong candidate.
ref: 2006, Pip Wilson, “Biographies”, in Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push, Coffs Harbour, N.S.W.: Pip Wilson, →ISBN; 3rd edition, Coffs Harbour, N.S.W.: Pip Wilson, January 2007, →ISBN, page 543:
text: If they didn't go ahead, it would look like they had piked, backed down.
ref: 2008, Chris Pash, The Last Whale, ReadHowYouWant edition, Fremantle, W.A.: Fremantle Press, →ISBN, page 36:
glosses: Often followed by on or out: to quit or back out of a promise.
Derived terms: piker
pikey