piker

Meaning

Noun

• A soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.
• One who bets or gambles only with small amounts of money.
• A stingy person; a cheapskate.
• An amateur.
• One who refuses to go out with friends, or leaves a party early.
• One who pikes (quits or backs out of a promise).
• A male freshman at Cornell University.
• A tramp; a vagrant.

Origin

• From pike + -er. In some senses, it has been linked etymologically to the word pikey as well as to Pike County in eastern Missouri . In the latter instance the term originally denoted poor immigrants to California.