pike

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“
His refuge lay a few feet from the pike, and the pike was a road through pandemonium.

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Definitions (64)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (12)

  1. noun A long spear formerly used by infantry.
  2. transitive verb To attack or pierce with a pike.
  3. noun A freshwater game and food fish (Esox lucius) of the Northern Hemisphere that has a long snout and attains a length of over 1.2 meters (4 feet). Also called northern pike.
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Examples (50)

  • Le Monnier at once wounded him in the chest with a long pike, and two other relations of Mademoiselle d'Ailly hit him over the head with clubs, "so that he fell to the ground as one dead." —  The Story of Rouen
  • Especially on the left of the Nineteenth a large and widening gap appeared; for Ricketts had been instructed to guide on the Berryville pike, and that bore away to the left and south My battalion, the veteran Thirteenth Conn. —  Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons A Personal Experience, 1864-5
  • He had been taught that the artificial fly was the proper lure for a true angler to use For coarse fish like perch and pike, a bait was permissible. —  Days Off And Other Digressions
  • I once kept a small pike, about ten inches long, in an aquarium, into which I also introduced five or six sticklebacks. —  Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children
  • In the year 1497, according to old Gesner, a pike was taken at Halibrun in Suabia with a brazen ring attached to it, on which was the following inscription in Greek:--"I am the fish which was put into the lake by the hands of the governor of the universe, Frederick the Second, the 5th of October, 1230." —  Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children
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Etymologies (13)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. French pique, from Old French, from piquer, to prick; see pique.
  2. Middle English, perhaps from Old English pīc, sharp point (from its shape).
  3. Short for turnpike.
  4. Middle English, possibly of Scandinavian origin.
  5. Middle English, from Old English pīc.
  6. Perhaps from pike2.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (7)

  1. Early modern English also pyke; from Middle English pike, pyke, pyk, a sharp point, an iron point or tip or a staff or spear, a piked staff or spear, from Anglo-Saxon pīc, in earliest form piic, a pike (glossing Middle Latin acisculum for *aciculum, a needle or pin), also in comp. horn-pīc, a peak, pinnacle (rare in all uses), = Middle Dutch pijcke, a pike, spear, later pieke, Dutch pick, a pike, spear, flourish with the pen, dash, = Middle Low German pēk, Low German pek; pick, a pike, spear, = German pike, pieke, a pike, spear, spade at cards, piek, a spade at cards, = Swedish pik, a pike, spear, = Danish pike, a pike, spear, pik, a pike, peak (nautical), = Old French pique, picque, a pike, spear, pikeman, spade at cards, French pique, pike, spear, spade at cards, = Spanish Portuguese pica, feminine, a pike, spear, pikeman, = Old Italian pica, Italian picca, a pike, spear, peak (Middle Latin pica, a pike, spear, pickax); also Spanish pico, masculine, sharp point, peak, top, point of land, pickax, spout, beak, bill, = Portuguese pico, masculine, peak, top, summit, —Old Italian pico, masculine, diminutive picchio, an iron hammer, beetle, pickax, etc. (Middle Latin picus, a hook) (the Teut, and Roman forms and senses show more or less reaction); also in Celtic: Irish pice, a pike, fork, = Gael, pic, a pike, spear, pickax, = Welsh pig, a point, pike, bill, beak, = Bret, pik, a pike, point, pickax; cf. Ir.picidh, a pike, spear, pitchfork; peac, a sharp-pointed thing, etc., whence ult. English peak (see peak); prob. orig. with initial s, from Latin spīca, feminine, spīcum, neuter, a point, ear of grain, top or tuft of a plant, Late Latin also a pin, whence ult. English spike: see spike. Cf. pick, the forms pick and pike in noun and verb uses being more or less confused. Hence pike, v., pike, pike, and, through Old French and F., pike and pique, as well as picket, piquet, etc.
  2. from Middle English piken, pyken, prob. only or chiefly with a short vowel, pĭken, a variant of picken, pikken, modern pick: the ref. to pike, n., being only secondary: see pike, pick, pitch.
  3. from Middle English pike, pyke, a fish so called from its long slender shape and pointed snout; from pike, a sharp point: see pike. Cf. the equivalent names, English hake, haked, etc.; French brochet, a pike, from broche, a spit; Bret, beked, a pike, from bek, beak; D. snock, a pike, from snoeijen, cut.
  4. Abbr. of turnpike, turnpike road.
  5. apparently from pike, n.
  6. Middle English piken: see peek.
  7. See piker.
 

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/paɪk/
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