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pikey love

pikey

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb UK, slang, derogatory to steal.
  • noun A low-ranking soldier who merely carries a pike.
  • noun UK, pejorative A working-class (often underclass) person; can vary from specifically Irish Travellers to gypsies or travellers from any ethnic background, but now increasingly used for any socially undesirable person, with negative connotations of benefit fraud, theft, single-parent families and living on run-down estates.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

pike + -y

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From obsolete pike, to depart or travel, or possibly from turnpike This definition is lacking an etymology or has an incomplete etymology. You can help Wiktionary by giving it a proper etymology. - needs to be confirmed

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Derived from the stereotype that all gypsies or other travellers are thieves.

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Examples

  • Surely a ginger pikey is worse than both a ginger AND a pikey so why make it worse by advertising your new name? on February 12, 2010 at 3: 19 pm justabobby

    Why front-line police officers are glad about Dizaei « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2010

  • Some previous stuff I have done on thieving pikey bastards: assorted pikey pictures and my bit on how you can not call pikey thieving gippo scum itinerant travellers.

    Archive 2008-03-01 FIDO The Dog 2008

  • Marco has been condemned by the racial equality watchdog after he used the word "pikey" on his ITV show.

    Pikey lives up to sterotype. FIDO The Dog 2009

  • It is almost as if the word "pikey" had come into general use among the upper and middle classes for working people.

    Dale's Academy of Political Correction: Ban Word 'Toff' 2008

  • Marco has been condemned by the racial equality watchdog after he used the word "pikey" on his ITV show.

    Archive 2008-03-01 FIDO The Dog 2008

  • George Monbiot is horrified at racism towards gypsies, as shown by the burning of "pikey" effigies at a Sussex bonfire.

    Archive 2003-11-02 Laban 2003

  • George Monbiot is horrified at racism towards gypsies, as shown by the burning of "pikey" effigies at a Sussex bonfire.

    Monbiot - a new Jeremy Sandford ? Laban 2003

  • a pikey is a gypsy is a traveller. by nature they do not come from anywhere fixed ... therfore cant be a RACE!!

    Computer And Video Games 2009

  • a pikey is a gypsy is a traveller. by nature they do not come from anywhere fixed ... therfore cant be a RACE!!

    Computer And Video Games 2009

  • 'One of my closest friends is an Irish traveller and he uses the term' pikey 'all the time.

    Home | Mail Online 2010

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cross-references (4)

Cross-references

  1. charva
  2. chav
  3. gypsy
  4. yob

Comments

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  • alexz commented on the word pikey

    This word was debated by the BBC to see if it was racist after BBC's Top Gear made a "Pikey's Peak" joke about Pike's Peak hill climb race.

    http://m.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31922773

    I previously saw the term 'pikey' in the 2000 movie Snatch


    I wonder if it's coincidence that this article is from March 17th.

    March 17, 2015