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by Anonymous on March 28th, 2006

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What's the origin of the slang term "Pikey"?

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  • by pudzey101 on January 6th, 2008

    pudzey101

    Pikey is a pejorative slang term used primarily in the United Kingdom, used originally to refer to Irish travellers.
    Contemporary usage

    In recent years, the definition has become loose and is sometimes used to refer to a wide section of the (generally urban) underclass of the country, or merely a person of any social class who "lives on the cheap". This seems to be the meaning intended by Stephen Fry in an episode of QI, grouping together "hoodies and pikeys and chavs", and intimating that these people are of a sort who "go out on the town, beating people up and drinking Bacardi Breezers".

    The term is considered to have negative connotations; even when it refers to others, many people still consider it to be derogatory and offensive. "Pikey" is frequently used as an adjective, as in "he lives on a pikey estate", "those clothes look pikey" or "(name of cheap shop) is a pikey shop". However, "pikey" is also occasionally used as a verb, a synonym for "steal", as in "Someone's pikeyed my bike".

    Negative British attitudes towards "pikeys" were a running joke in the 2000 Guy Ritchie film Snatch, making the line "I fucking hate pikeys" one of many oft-quoted lines amongst the film's fans. For his role in the film, actor Brad Pitt learned how to speak fluent "pikey" (actually a barely intelligible patois used for comic effect which became known informally as Hyper-Gyp and/or Speed-Pyke).

    The American terms "trailer trash" and "white trash" are similar in the condescension and disdain with which they are used, though the stereotypes differ in some particulars.

    The term "pikey" is used widely all around the fringes of Greater London and particularly in the region of West London near Heathrow Airport and all of the neighbouring boroughs, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Slough, Staines, Uxbridge, etc., where large numbers of travellers or gypsies have settled over decades. It is generally used as a description of those people and their classes or types and is therefore a stereotype of those people from the areas where in the 1920s to 1960s a lot of unused land was bought or occupied and unplanned development took place. The term "pikey" is also used as a pejorative term for those people and for their perceived traits. Sometimes, the term is used emotively and indicates an element of envy, because some types of work or business are viewed as "wheeler-dealer" or "pikey" business practices.

    A well known example of the word's use in popular culture is on the television show, The Catherine Tate Show, where Catherine Tate playing a cheeky schoolgirl named Lauren often uses phrases such as "are you callin' me a pikey" to suggest that others are 'disrespecting' her.

    Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikey

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  • by Anonymous on September 25th, 2009

    Anonymous

    The term pikey as a pejorative appears to be a very old English word, remaining near unchanged, probably in common use during William Shakespeare's lifetime. The text Gypsy Politics and Social Change notes Boorde's 1547 reference:

    Boorde remarked in 1547 of the: "Egipcions [sic: Egyptians i.e.: Gypsies] be swarte [swarthy] and doth go disgsy'd [disguised] in theyr [their] apparel, contrary to other nacyons [nations]: they be lyght [light] fyngered [fingered], and use pyking[1]"

    The term is strongly associated with itinerant life and constant travel: pikey is directly derived from pike which, circa 1520, meant to "go away from, to go on" and related to the words turnpike (toll-road) and pike-man (toll-collector) [2] wikipedia

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  • by TRAY39 on March 15th, 2009

    TRAY39

    THE ORIGINS OF THE WORD PIKEY.... pikey originates from the easter uprising of 1916,land owners and better off folk had guns. the poorer were call to pick up pikes as explained in the following songs.
    1/ father murphy also known as boolavoge. the last paragraph is .
    .success attend the sweet county wexford.throw off its yoke and to battle run..
    .let them not thinkwe gave up our arms...
    .FOR EVERY MAN HAS A PIKE OR GUN..........
    2.THE RISING OF THE MOON..
    .at the rising of the moon.
    the pikes must be together at the rising or the moon...
    with your pikesupon your shoulder.
    it has nothing to do with travellers or gypsies

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  • by Michael on August 22nd, 2011

    Michael

    a pikey is a traveller who baths in poodles and shits in his caravan toilet and are thiefs unlike travellers/gypsy's who are clean and good people

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  • by Alatea on April 13th, 2006

    Alatea

    Pikey is a pejorative slang term used in the United Kingdom which refers to Gypsies and other travellers.

    Traditionally the word referred to Gypsies or vagrants. The first recorded use was in 1847. Though sources agree that the word derives from "pike" the Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (which gives pikie as an alternative spelling) indicates that the "precise origins of these terms (and the American term piker) [ are ] unclear because of the convergence of two similar senses of pike" the first is turnpike, a road on which a toll is collected; the second is an archaic British English verb meaning to depart or travel.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikey

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