pikey

The term "pikey" is possibly derived from "pike" which, c. 1520, meant "highway" and is related to the words turnpike (toll road) and pikeman (toll collector).{{cite book |first1=Eric |last1=Partridge |first2=Jacqueline |last2=Simpson |title=The Routledge Dictionary of Historical Slang 6th Edition |publisher=Routledge |year=1973 |isbn=0-7100-7761-0 |page=691}} In Robert Henryson's Fable Collection (late 15th century), in the fable of the Two Mice, the thieving mice are referred to on more than one occasion as "pykeris":

And in the samin thay went, but mair abaid,

Withoutin fyre or candill birnand bricht

For commonly sic pykeris luffis not lycht.{{cite book|last1=Fox|first1=Denton|title=The Poems of Robert Henryson|date=1981|publisher=Clarendon Press|location=Oxford|page=11}}

And together they went, but more about,

without fire or candle burning bright

For commonly, such thieves do not like light.

Charles Dickens in 1837 writes disparagingly of itinerant pike-keepers.

The Oxford English Dictionary traced the earliest use of "pikey" to The Times in August 1838, which referred to strangers who had come to the Isle of Sheppey as "pikey-men".Oxford English Dictionary{{Full citation needed|date=September 2023}} In 1847, J. O. Halliwell in his Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words recorded the use of "pikey" to mean a gypsy. In 1887, W. D. Parish and W. F. Shaw in the Dictionary of Kentish Dialect recorded the use of the word to mean "a turnpike traveller; a vagabond; and so generally a low fellow".{{Full citation needed|date=September 2023}}

Thomas Acton's Gypsy Politics and Social Change notes John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary (1887) as similarly stating:

Hotten's dictionary of slang gives pike at as go away and Pikey as a tramp or a Gypsy. He continues a pikey-cart is, in various parts of the country, one of those habitable vehicles suggestive of country life. Possibly the term has some reference to those who continually use the pike or turnpike road.{{cite book|last=Acton|first=Thomas|title=Gypsy politics and social change|publisher=Taylor & Francis|year=1974|isbn=978-0-7100-7838-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FNEOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA73|access-date=14 August 2009}}

The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society similarly agrees the term pikey solely applied (negatively) to Romani people.Gypsy Lore Society, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society The Society of Gypsy Lore volume 6: 1912Albert Barrère, Charles Godfrey Leland, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant embracing English, American, and Anglo-Indian slang, pidgin English, gypsies' jargon and other irregular phraseology Volume 2, G. Bell: 1897, 915 pages:

Pikey remained, as of 1989, common prison slang for Romani people or those who have a similar lifestyle of itinerant unemployment and travel.{{cite book |first1=Ken |last1=Smith |first2=Dave |last2=Wait |title=Inside Time |publisher=Harrap |date=1989 |isbn=0-245-54720-7 | pages=235}} More recently, pikey was applied to Irish Travellers (other slurs include tinkers and knackers) and non-Romanichal travellers.{{cite news |last=Geoghegan |first=Tom |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7446274.stm |title=How offensive is the word 'pikey'? |publisher=BBC News |date=11 June 2008 |access-date=2012-02-12}}{{cite web |author=Aidan McGurran |url=https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/2008/06/10/formula-1-commentator-in-pikey-ofcom-probe-89520-20601991/ |title=mirror.co.uk, Formula 1 commentator in 'pikey' Ofcom probe |work=Mirror|date=10 June 2008 |access-date=2012-02-12}} In the late 20th century, it came to be used to describe "a lower-class person, regarded as coarse or disreputable".

The most common contemporary use of pikey is not as a term for the Romani ethnic group, but as a catch-all phrase to refer to people, of any ethnic group, who travel around with no fixed abode. Among English Romani Gypsies the term pikey refers to a Traveller who is not of Romani descent. It may also refer to a member who has been cast out of the family.{{cite book |first=Manfri Frederick |last=Wood |title=In the life of a Romany gypsy |location=London |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |date=1973 |isbn=0-7100-7595-2}}

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the definition became even looser and is sometimes used to refer to a wide section of the (generally urban) underclass of the country (in England generally known as chavs), or merely a person of any social class who "lives on the cheap" such as a bohemian. It is also used as an adjective, e.g. "a pikey estate" or "a pikey pub". Following complaints from Travellers' groups about racism, when the term was used by presenter Jeremy Clarkson as a pun for Pike's Peak in the television programme Top Gear, the Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust ruled that, in this instance, the term merely meant "cheap".{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31922773 |publisher=BBC News |title=Top Gear cleared over Pike's Peak pun |date=2015-03-17}} In doing so, it justified the ascribed meaning by quoting the Wikipedia article for the term.{{cite news |title=Top Gear cleared by Ofcom after 'pikey' probe |url=http://www.irishexaminer.com/examviral/celeb-life/top-gear-cleared-by-ofcom-after-pikey-probe-344805.html |access-date=2015-07-27 |publisher=Irish Examiner |date=2015-07-27}}

In 2003 the Firle Bonfire Society burned an effigy of a family of gypsies inside a caravan after travellers damaged local land.{{cite news |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1446744/How-tradition-lit-the-fuse-for-gipsy-effigy.html |location=London |work=The Daily Telegraph |first=Toby |last=Helm |title=How tradition lit the fuse for gipsy effigy |date=15 November 2003}} The number plate on the caravan read "P1KEY". A storm of protests and accusations of racism rapidly followed.{{cite web |url=http://archive.theargus.co.uk/2003/10/29/123401.html |title=Local newspaper article about the Lewes protest |publisher=Archive.theargus.co.uk |date=2003-10-29 |access-date=2012-02-12}}{{cite news|author=Mark Townsend |url=https://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/nov/16/raceintheuk.uknews |title=National newspaper article about the Lewes protests |work=The Guardian |date=16 November 2003 |access-date=2012-02-12}}{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1446835/Lay-off-revellers-who-blew-up-gipsy-caravan-on-my-land-says-viscount.html |location=London |work=The Daily Telegraph |first=Rajeev |last=Syal |title=Lay off revellers who blew up gipsy caravan on my land, says viscount |date=2003-11-16}} Twelve members of the society were arrested but the Crown Prosecution Service decided that there was insufficient evidence to proceed on a charge of "incitement to racial hatred".{{cite web |url=http://83.137.212.42/sitearchive/cre/about/sci/casestudy9_firle.html |title=Safe Communities Initiative: case studies Contingency Planning in Firle |last=Carey |first=Rachel |year=2007 |publisher=Commission for Racial Equality |access-date=16 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090126152637/http://83.137.212.42/sitearchive/cre/about/sci/casestudy9_firle.html|archive-date=2009-01-26 |url-status=dead}}

The Oxford History of English refers to:

{{blockquote|young people who use charver or pikey to identify a contemporary style of dress or general demeanour suggest an aimless "street" lifestyle, unaware of the Romani origin of the first or of connotation with "gypsy" of the second.

Pikey, formed from turnpike roads, as along with pikee and piker been used in the South East [of England] especially since the mid-19th-century to refer to itinerant people of all kinds and been used by travelling people to refer to those of low caste. Scally a corresponding label originating in the North West of England was taken up by the media and several websites, only to be superseded by chav.

A very recent survey has unearthed 127 synonyms, with ned favoured in Scotland, charver in North East England and pikey across the South [of England].{{cite book |last=Mugglestone |first=Lynda |title=The Oxford history of English |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=2006 |isbn=0-19-924931-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780199544394/page/322 322] |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780199544394/page/322 }}}}

• Chav
• Eshay
• Didicoy
• New Age travellers
• Trailer trash

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book | editor=John Ayto | title=The Oxford Dictionary of Slang | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1999 | isbn=0-19-863157-X | url=https://archive.org/details/oxforddictionary00john }}
• {{cite book | editor=T. F. Hoad | title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1986 | isbn=0-19-283098-8 | url=https://archive.org/details/conciseoxforddic00tfho }}
• {{cite book | author=Tony Thorne | title=Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing Plc | year=1990 | isbn=0-7475-4594-4}}

{{wiktionary}}

• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2887575.stm Anger over "pikey" slur] (BBC News)
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6988676.stm Davidson exits after TV gay row] (BBC News) — use of "pikey" by Marco Pierre White
• [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7446274.stm How offensive is the word "pikey"?] (BBC News)
• [http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3213_3969520,00.html Brundle escapes punishment for "pikey" comment] (Planet F1)

{{Ethnic slurs}}

{{Irish Travellers}}

Category:Antiziganism in the United Kingdom

Category:British slang

Category:Class-related slurs

Category:English words

Category:Ethnic and religious slurs

Category:Irish Travellers

Category:Romani in the United Kingdom

Category:Youth culture in the United Kingdom