piker

(pī'kər)
n. Slang

1. A cautious gambler.
2. A person regarded as petty or stingy.

[Possibly from Piker, a poor migrant to California, after Pike County in eastern Missouri.]

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Origin: 1858

Pike County, Missouri, is located on the Mississippi River north of St. Louis and just south of Mark Twain's Hannibal. It is still a quiet rural county, noted for the Stark Brothers Nursery and not much else. But its name is known nationwide, thanks to Pikers, who followed the gold rushes to California and Colorado in the mid-nineteenth century. By the late 1850s they were so prominent in these adventures that Piker became the nickname for anyone from Missouri, not just from Pike County. We find them in a Marysville, California, newspaper of 1860: "Pillbox said they were there for the benefit of the 'Pikers,' that they might learn to read."

The Pikers were not noted for quickness of wit or spectacular success at finding gold, but they did gain a reputation for frugality. A Piker would not gamble, drink, or spend his money to excess. Thus he was viewed by the free-spending majority as a timid cheapskate. And so piker, having lost its association with a particular place and thereby its capital letter, came to mean someone of no boldness or ambition, someone who ventures little and always plays it safe. The term applied first to small-stakes gamblers, then to small-stakes investors in the stock market, then to slackers in any enterprise. Missouri nowadays has no more pikers than anyplace else.

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noun
noun, orig US

A cautious gambler; someone who shies away from risk; a shirker or lounger. (1859 —) .
H. L. Wilson 'I says to myself the other day: "I bet a cookie he'd like to be like me!" ' Homer was a piker, even when he made bets with himself (1919).

[From pike verb, perh. in the earlier sense, to depart + -er.]

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For a list of words related to piker, see:

• Behavior or Personality

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See words rhyming with "piker."

Dansk (Danish)
n. - fedthas, bangebuks, vagabond

Nederlands (Dutch)
lafaard, kleine speculant, gierigaard

Français (French)
n. - (US) minable (péj)

Deutsch (German)
n. - vorsichtige Person

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - φοβητσιάρης, άτολμος

Italiano (Italian)
avaro, piccolo investitore

Português (Portuguese)
n. - vagabundo (m) (gír.), pão-duro (m)

Русский (Russian)
крохобор

Español (Spanish)
n. - tacaño, roñoso

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - snåljåp, ngn som inte vågar satsa mkt i spel

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
谨慎的赌徒, 胆小鬼

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 謹慎的賭徒, 膽小鬼

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 세심하고 인색한 도박꾼, 소액 투자자, 구두쇠

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - けちん坊, 臆病者, 用心深くけちな賭博師, 株式市場の小口筋

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) المقامر أو المضارب بميالغ صغيرة, من يعمل شيئا ما بطريقه خسيسه رخيصه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮משקיע בסכומים קטנים, מהמר זהיר, נושא רומח‬

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