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pike

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Dictionaries separate several words spelled pike; the main ones are the point, the fish, the weapon and the road.[1][2][3]

Pronunciation

pike1 point, spike; pointed hill

Etymology

The point is inherited from Middle English pike, also pik and pyk,[2] inherited from Old English pīc (“point, pointed tool, pickaxe”),[3][5][2][1] recorded from about 725 as piic.[1] It is a long-vowel counterpart of pic, the source of pick.[2] The OED finds it apparently cognate with Middle Dutch pīke (“pickaxe, pruning knife, bill”), Low German Peik (“pointed implement”), Old Norse pík (“staff with a spike”), Norwegian Nynorsk pik (“spike, point; peak, summit”) and Old Swedish piker (“spike, point”), and probably with the first element of a Gothic word for a palm tree, but calls its further origin uncertain and disputed.[3] Gersum and Orel set up Proto-Germanic *pīkaz;[6][7] Orel adds that it is usually taken as a loan from Vulgar Latin *pīcus, a view he finds unclear.[7] Bosworth-Toller called it a Celtic word,[5] and Merriam-Webster takes it as probably Celtic, comparing Scottish Gaelic pic (“pickaxe”), Breton pik, Irish pice (“pitchfork”) and Welsh pig (“point, beak”);[8][1] the OED leaves open whether the Celtic forms are inherited or borrowed from English and French.[3] In Middle English the word was reinforced by Anglo-Norman pic and Old French pic (“pickaxe, spike”),[3][2] recorded in Anglo-Norman from 1086 for a pick, a spike or a pointed tip.[9] The sense of a pointed hill is either a transferred use of the same noun or a borrowing from early Scandinavian;[3][10][6] Klein and Weekley call it Norse.[11][12] The OED notes that place names with pike centre on Cumbria and other areas of heavy Scandinavian settlement, but also occur outside the Danelaw, so that the sense may be native, reinforced there by its Scandinavian cognate.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A pickaxe, a pick for digging or breaking up ground: in the early Old English Corpus Glossary, where piic glosses Latin acisculum.[3][5][1]

Semantic evolution

Already in Old English the word also meant a sharp point or spike and a staff with a spike, especially a pilgrim's staff.[3] Etymonline notes that pike, pick and pitch were long used without distinction,[2] and Ayto that pitchfork was originally a pickfork, a fork with sharp points.[13] In Middle English it was used for the long pointed toe of a fashionable shoe (1394), and then from Trevisa (before 1398) for a pitchfork, a sense that survives in the west of England and in Welsh and Irish English.[3] In the north of England and in Scotland it came to mean a hill with a pointed summit, first in a Cumberland place name of 1243,[3] as in the Langdale Pikes and Scafell Pike,[3] and then from 1565 a pointed haystack.[3][10] A reflexive verb pike, to take oneself off (before 1470, in Malory), is probably a use of pick meaning to provide oneself with a pilgrim's staff;[3][14] Merriam-Webster likewise derives the verb from pike in the sense of a pikestaff.[8] By about 1529, in Skelton, it meant simply to go or depart,[3][8] and in Lakeland, Yorkshire, Lancashire and other dialects pike off meant to go away.[15] From 1859, first in American English, it meant to gamble cautiously, and then to shirk or back out;[3][10] Word Origins traces the Australian and New Zealand pike out, to withdraw from a plan, to the old sense of departing,[14] while Green's Dictionary of Slang takes the American pike, pike out as a back-formation from piker.[16]

Timeline

  • c. 725 – piic, a pickaxe.[1][3]
  • Old English – a sharp point or spike; a staff with a spike, a pilgrim's staff.[3]
  • 1243 – a pointed hill, in a Cumberland place name.[3]
  • c. 1300 – a prickle or thorn, chiefly Scottish.[3]
  • 1394 – the long pointed toe of a shoe.[3]
  • before 1398 – a pitchfork.[3]
  • before 1470 – reflexive verb, to make off, in Malory.[3]
  • c. 1529 – to depart, go off.[3][8]
  • 1565 – a pointed haystack.[3]
  • 1859 – to gamble cautiously; later, to back out.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A sharp point or spike, especially the metal tip of a staff or spear.[8][3][10]
  2. (dialect) A pick or pickaxe; also a pitchfork.[8][3]
  3. (northern England) A hill or mountain with a pointed summit, now chiefly in place names: They climbed the pike before the mist came down.[8][3][10]
  4. (regional) A pointed stack of hay.[8][3]
  5. (historical) The long pointed toe of a shoe of the 14th and 15th centuries; a poulaine.[8][3]

Verb

  1. (colloquial) To leave or go off, often with off or out: He piked off before the bill arrived.[8][3][10]
  2. (colloquial, chiefly Australian) pike out: to back out of a plan or promise.[3][10][14]

Word family

  • piked
  • pikestaff

pike2 fish

Etymology

The fish is probably a transferred use of pike1, the point, after its long pointed jaw,[3][10][17][8][1] perhaps through a shortening of pikefish.[2][11][18] French named the fish in the same way: Old French brochet, from broche (“spit”).[3][11][13] Hoad thinks the name may go back to Old English,[17] and the OED finds it earlier in place names, such as Picheburne (1086), now Pickburn in Yorkshire, and Pichemere (1154–89), now Pickmere in Cheshire.[3] The Anglo-Norman pike is from Middle English.[3] The diving position is probably named after the fish's pointed head, as in the German Hechtsprung (“pike jump”) and the Dutch snoeksprong;[3][19] Etymonline instead connects it with the sense of tapering to a point,[2] and the Shorter Oxford calls it of unknown origin.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The freshwater fish Esox lucius: 1314, in the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward II.[3] Barnhart dates the form pik to 1314 and pike to 1345.[1]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the pike was proverbial for health and vigour,[2] and Chaucer uses the word three times.[20] From 1601 the name was extended to other predatory fishes with pointed, toothed snouts, such as the garpike and the barracuda.[3] Johnson (1755) called the pike, in a quotation, the tyrant of the fresh waters.[21] In 1928 the word was applied to a position in diving in which the body is bent at the waist with the legs straight,[3][8][2] and then from 1956 it was also a verb, to take that position.[3]

Timeline

  • 1086 – implied in the place name Picheburne, now Pickburn.[3]
  • 1314 – the fish.[3][1]
  • 1345 – the form pike.[1]
  • 1601 – other fishes resembling the pike.[3]
  • 1928 – a position in diving.[3][8]
  • 1956 – verb, to take a pike position.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A long-bodied, predatory freshwater fish with a pointed snout and large teeth, Esox lucius, also called the northern pike.[8][18][3]
  2. Any of various similar fishes, such as the garpike.[3][18][22]
  3. A position in diving or gymnastics in which the body is bent at the hips with the legs kept straight.[8][10][3]

Verb

  1. To go into a pike position.[10][3]

Word family

  • pickerel
  • garpike
  • pikeminnow

pike3 infantry spear

Etymology

The weapon is borrowed from Middle French pique,[3][2][1][19][8][17] recorded from about 1365 in a text from Picardy.[3] The OED takes the French word from its source Middle Dutch pīke, a specific use of the Middle Dutch word for a pointed tool;[3] most other dictionaries derive it from piquer (“to prick, pierce”),[10][2][19][8][1] from Old French pic (“sharp point, spike”),[2][1] which Barnhart traces to a Germanic source,[1] while Merriam-Webster derives the verb from Vulgar Latin *piccō (“to prick”), from *piccus (“woodpecker”), from Latin pīcus (“woodpecker”).[8] Barnhart and Ayto add that the English word also grew in part out of the Old English noun for a point, and the Shorter Oxford that it was sometimes associated with it.[1][13][10] German Pike, Dutch piek and Danish pik come from the French or the Dutch word.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A weapon with a long wooden shaft and a pointed steel head: 1487, in the Rolls of Parliament.[3] Barnhart dates it to about 1511, and Etymonline to the 1510s.[1][2]

Semantic evolution

The pike was the chief weapon of much of the infantry until the bayonet replaced it in the 18th century.[2][8] From 1557 the word also meant a soldier armed with a pike.[3] It gave phrases such as to pass the pikes, to run the gauntlet or come through dangers (about 1555 to 1897), compared by the OED with Middle French passer les piques,[3][2] and push of pike, fighting at close quarters, from 1567.[3][2] To sell at a pike, to sell by auction (1594), follows the Latin phrase sub hasta, under the spear, since a spear was set up at a public auction.[3] In 16th-century slang the word could mean the penis.[16] The verb, to wound or kill with a pike, is recorded from 1787.[3][8]

Timeline

  • c. 1365 – pique, in a French text from Picardy.[3]
  • 1487 – the infantry weapon.[3]
  • c. 1511 – first record in Barnhart.[1]
  • c. 1555 – to pass the pikes (obsolete by 1897).[3]
  • 1557 – a pikeman.[3]
  • 1567 – push of pike, close combat.[3]
  • 1573 – slang, the penis.[16]
  • 1594 – to sell at a pike, to sell by auction.[3]
  • 1787 – verb, to wound or kill with a pike.[3][8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (historical) A weapon of foot soldiers, a long wooden shaft with a pointed steel or iron head.[8][19][10][3]
  2. (obsolete) A pikeman.[8][3]

Verb

  1. To pierce, wound or kill with a pike.[8][19][3][10]

Word family

  • pikeman
  • half-pike

pike4 turnpike, road

Etymology

The road is a shortening of turnpike.[3][2][8][1][17][11][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

A road on which a toll is collected: 1812, in Maria Edgeworth's The Absentee.[3][2][8] Barnhart dates the word to 1837, when Dickens used it in Pickwick Papers for a tollgate.[1]

Semantic evolution

The OED records the sense of a tollgate from 1820 and that of the toll itself from 1837 to 1894.[3] In Yorkshire and other English dialects pike meant a turnpike gate or toll-bar, as in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847).[15] The sense of a highway is first recorded in American English, in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852),[1] and in North America the word came to mean any main road;[3][10] come down the pike means to appear or come to notice.[10] From 1871 it was also a verb, to grade or surface a road, now rare,[3] and then from 1940 in the United States it was used for a railway line.[3][8]

Timeline

  • 1812 – a toll road.[3][2][8]
  • 1820 – a tollgate.[3]
  • 1837 – the toll paid at a tollgate (obsolete by 1894).[3][1]
  • 1852 – a highway, in American English.[1]
  • 1871 – verb, to grade or surface a road.[3]
  • 1940 – a railway line, in the United States.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (chiefly North American) A turnpike or toll road; now also any main road or highway.[8][3][10]
  2. (historical) A tollgate, or the toll paid there.[8][3]
  3. (US) A railroad line or system.[8][3][10]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  6. ^ a b Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org
  7. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  14. ^ a b c Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  16. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  17. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  18. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  19. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  20. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  21. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  22. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press