piker
/ˈpaɪkə(ɹ)/
"piker" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“piker” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 5
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.
Corpus desk
Index EN-piker · piker · English
piker · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | piker |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈpaɪkə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “piker” in English
Rare enough to double-check
piker is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈpaɪkə(ɹ)/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 9 senses are on record.
piker doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From pike + -er. In some senses, it has been linked etymologically to the word pikey as well as to Pike County in eastern Missouri https://web.archive.org/web/20051111194645/http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/p/p0300200.html. In the latter instance the term … The correct English form is piker, spelled P-I-K-E-R.
Definition
- 1A soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.
- 2One who bets or gambles only with small amounts of money.
- 3A stingy person; a cheapskate.
- 4An amateur.
- 5A bullock living in the wild. (Also used attributively.)
- 6One who refuses to go out with friends, or leaves a party early; a spoilsport or "chicken".
- 7One who pikes (quits or backs out of a promise).
- 8A male freshman at Cornell University.
- 9A tramp; a vagrant.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how piker appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Upstairs in a waiting room there were pikers whose tunics echoed Baudricourt′s gold lion shield painted up and down the rafters.
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.
Etymology
From pike + -er. In some senses, it has been linked etymologically to the word pikey as well as to Pike County in eastern Missouri https://web.archive.org/web/20051111194645/http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/p/p0300200.html. In the latter instance the term originally denoted poor immigrants to California.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.