different between cheapskate vs piker

English

Alternative forms

• cheap skate, cheap-skate

Etymology

From cheap +? skate (“contemptible person”). Compare blatherskite.

Noun

cheapskate (plural cheapskates)

1. Someone who stingily avoids spending money.

   Synonyms: miser; see also Thesaurus:miser

   Antonym: spendthrift

2. (by extension) Someone who does not give freely.

Translations

English

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 [1]. In the latter instance the term originally denoted poor immigrants to California.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pa?k?(?)/
• Rhymes: -a?k?(?)

Noun

piker (plural pikers)

1. (military, historical) A soldier armed with a pike, a pikeman.
   • 1974, Thomas Keneally, Blood Red, Sister Rose, page 82,

     Upstairs in a waiting room there were pikers whose tunics echoed Baudricourt?s gold lion shield painted up and down the rafters.

   • 2008, Cathal J. Nolan, Wars of the Age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715: An Encyclopedia of Global Warfare and Civilization, page 363,

     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.

2. One who bets or gambles only with small amounts of money.
   • 1921, B. M. Bower, Cow Country, 2004, page 79,

     Bud swelled his chest and laid his hand on Jeff?s shoulder. “Just to show you I?m not a piker,” he cried recklessly, “I?ll bet you twenty-five dollars I can beat your Skeeter with my Smoky horse that I rode in here. Is it a go?”

   • 1999, Lael Morgan, Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush, page 96,

     “Now, boys,” said Marie walking up and down the bar, once or twice lifting her skirt to her knees and laughing. “The last bid?s $5,000. Say, ain?t you pikers a-goin? to bid higher than that for this?" And another flick of her skirts. “Here?s a nice plump chicken awaiting for a home.”

3. A stingy person; a cheapskate.
   • 1916, Richard Harding Davis, The Man Who Could Not Lose, 2008, page 22,

     “And if you?ve got to be a piker,” said Dolly, “don?t be ashamed to be a piker. We?re not spending a hundred dollars because we can afford it, but because you dreamt a dream. You didn?t dream you were riding in parlor-cars! If you did, it?s time I woke you!”

     This day there was for them no box overlooking the finish, no club-house luncheon. With the other pikers, they sat in the free seats, with those who sat coatless and tucked their handkerchiefs inside their collars, and those who mopped their perspiring countenances with rice-paper and marked their cards with a hat-pin. Their lunch consisted of a massive ham sandwich with a top dressing of mustard.

   • 2000, Peter L. Bernstein, The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession, page 218,

     The golden nuggets in the stream at Sutter?s Mill in California made Croesus look like a piker, and Australia, the Klondike, and South Africa were yet to come.

   • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day, Vintage 2007, p. 604:

     Whatever else this cupcake might be up to, she was no piker. For everything the Q?s ordered, she added on more of the same.

4. An amateur.
5. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) One who refuses to go out with friends, or leaves a party early.

6. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) One who pikes (quits or backs out of a promise).
7. (US, dated) A male freshman at Cornell University.
8. A tramp; a vagrant.

   Synonym: pike

Quotations

The 2000 film Boiler Room makes reference to "pikers" in the following excerpt:

So now you know what's possible, let me tell you what's required. You are required to work your fucking ass off at this firm. We want winners here, not pikers. A piker walks at the bell. A piker asks how much vacation time you get in the first year. Vacation time? People come to work at this firm for one reason: to become filthy rich; that's it. We're not here to make friends; we're not saving the fucking manatees here, guys. You want vacation time, go teach third grade at a public school. (wav, mp3)

References

Anagrams

• Kiper

Middle English

Alternative forms

• pycker, pikere, pyker, pykare

Etymology

From piken +? -er.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pik?r(?)/, /?pi?k?r(?)/

Noun

piker (plural pikers)

1. A robber or pickpocket.

References

• “p??ker(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-05-08.

Norwegian Bokmål

Noun

piker m or f

1. indefinite plural of pike