pikey

Meanings

Noun

• A pike (fish).
• A working-class (often underclass) person; can vary from specifically Irish Travellers to gypsies or travellers from any ethnic background, but now increasingly used for any socially undesirable person, with negative connotations of benefit fraud, theft, single-parent families and living on rundown estates.

Adjective

• Associated with or filled with pike (fish).
• Associated with members of the above-mentioned underclass.

Verb

• To steal.

Origin

• pike + -y.
• Possibly from obsolete pike, or possibly from turnpike. The verb is derived from the stereotype that gypsies or other travellers are thieves.