Piker

Quick meaning: Piker is a noun meaning (military, historical) A soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.

Meaning

(military, historical) A soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.

More Meanings

1. One who bets or gambles only with small amounts of money.
2. A stingy person; a cheapskate.
3. An amateur.
4. (Australia) A bullock living in the wild. (Also used attributively.)
5. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) One who refuses to go out with friends, or leaves a party early; a spoilsport or "chicken".
6. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) One who pikes (quits or backs out of a promise).
7. (US, dated) A male freshman at Cornell University.

Example Sentences

Whatever else this cupcake might be up to, she was no piker. For everything the Q′s ordered, she added on more of the same.

Upstairs in a waiting room there were pikers whose tunics echoed Baudricourt′s gold lion shield painted up and down the rafters.

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.

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.

Word Forms

• pikers

Synonyms for piker

Depending on context, synonyms include break-promise, reneger, break-vow, oathbreaker, pike.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include cheapskate, tightwad, pikeman, pikey, pyke, halfpike.

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