"Piker"

[Jonathan Lighter]

But the more the merrier. Would still like additional pre-1900 "piker"s.  And, while we're at it, pre-1900 to "pike," meaning to bet in a small way.

  JL

Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Jesse Sheidlower
Subject: Re: "Piker"
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On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 02:09:13PM -0800, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> This familiar disparaging epithet is sometimes said to derive from "Piker," a poor Western immigrant from Pike Co., Mo. (home of Sweet Betsy).
>
> Well, maybe. The earliest ex. I've seen comes from Matsell's _Vocabulum_ in 1859, presumably reflecting NYC usage. DA & OED offer a couple of 1870s exx. having the obsolete meaning of "tramp."
>
> Can anyone come up with some early (pre-1900) citations that might shed light on the etymology of "piker" ? The word is common in print after 1898.
>

For what it's worth, the OED's current treatment, soon to be
published, has the English 'tramp' sense from the 1830s; puts
the 'poor resident of Pike Co. Missouri' sense (for which we
have 1859 evidence) as an etymologically distinct item, and
derives the 'small-timer' sense (first attested in Matsell)
from the verb _pike_ 'to gamble small amounts' (from the
same period).

Jesse Sheidlower
OED




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