pike

Meanings

1. A very long spear used two-handed by infantry soldiers for thrusting (not throwing), both for attacks on enemy foot soldiers and as a countermeasure against cavalry assaults.
2. A sharp, pointed staff or implement.
3. A large haycock (“conical stack of hay left in a field to dry before adding to a haystack”).
4. Any carnivorous freshwater fish of the genus Esox, especially the northern pike, Esox lucius.
5. A position with the knees straight and a tight bend at the hips with the torso folded over the legs, usually part of a jack-knife.
6. A pointy extrusion at the toe of a shoe.
7. A style of shoes with pikes, popular in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries.
8. Especially in place names: a hill or mountain, particularly one with a sharp peak or summit.
9. A pick, a pickaxe.
10. A hayfork.
11. A penis.

1. To prod, attack, or injure someone with a pike.
2. To assume a pike position.
3. To bet or gamble with only small amounts of money.
4. Often followed by on or out: to quit or back out of a promise.

1. Clipping of turnpike.
2. A gypsy, itinerant tramp, or traveller from any ethnic background; a pikey.

1. To equip with a turnpike.
2. To depart or travel (as if by a turnpike), especially to flee, to run away.

1. A surname from Middle English.
2. A number of places in the United States:
3. A census-designated place in Sierra County, California.
4. An unincorporated community in Boone County, Indiana, first named Pikes Crossing, at the crossing of a turnpike.
5. An unincorporated community in Haverhill, Grafton County, New Hampshire.
6. A town, hamlet, and census-designated place therein, in Wyoming County, New York.
7. An unincorporated community in Collin County, Texas.
8. An unincorporated community in Ritchie County, West Virginia, named for a turnpike intersection.
9. A number of townships in the United States, listed under Pike Township.

1. A member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.

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”).