Pikey
Pikey is a pejorative
slang term used in the
United Kingdom and
Ireland, used originally to refer to
Irish 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.
In recent years, the definition has become looser and is sometimes used to refer to a wide section of the (generally
urban) underclass of the country, particularly those on whom the lower
middle classes look down, or merely a person of any social class who "lives on the cheap". When used to refer to either
Irish Travellers or Gypsies, it is considered to have
racist connotations; even when it refers to others, many people still consider it to be derogatory and offensive. Pikey is also commonly used as a synonym of
chav, a word which is regarded as having classist rather than racist overtones. "Pikey" is equally frequently used as an adjective, as in "he lives on a pikey
estate", "those clothes look pikey" or
"(name of cheap shop, e.g. one where goods are always sold for one pound) is a pikey shop".
Negative British attitudes towards "pikeys" (in this case meaning Irish Travellers) were a running joke in the
2000 Guy Ritchie film
Snatch, making the line "I fucking hate pikeys" (often said with a thick accent) one of many oft-quoted lines amongst the film's fans. For his role in the film, actor
Brad Pitt convincingly learned how to speak fluent "pikey" (actually an unintelligible
patois used for comic effect).
Related terms for urban or suburban miscreants can be found in
the dictionary entry for "chav". The popularity of these terms has grown since the
1980s, and their usage reflects serious and light-hearted issues arising from changes in British urban life rather than an increased need to characterize the lifestyle of travellers.
Pikey has quite a different meaning from
crustie - a word which became popular during the
1990s and refers to a kind of anarcho-
punk/
hippie traveller/
squatter who rejects many aspects of modern society and identifies with the underground
festival and
protest culture, and in particular, often listens to
crust punk music. In particular, the stereotype of a crustie is of a person from a privileged background who has 'dropped out', whereas that of a pikey is of a person who was born into poverty.
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.
*
Irish Traveller*
Gypsy*
Ned*
Scally*
Chav*
Redneck*
Yobbo*
Bogan*
White Trash*
Diddycoy*
Skanger# # #
*
ChavScum - A Humorous Guide to Britain's Burgeoning Peasant Underclass*
Anger over 'pikey' slur (BBC News)*
A humourous site on hating with a section on chavs.
