Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also pike off) to leave, to run off quickly; often as pike it, pike over; also to move forward.

c.1575		Ane Ballat of Matrymonie in Laing Early Pop. Poetry Scotland II 77: He bad them then go pyke them home.
1663		Wandring-Whores Complaint 3: I pikt off too nimbly for them, otherwise I would have been in the Naskin.
1676		A Newgate ex-prisoner A Warning for House-Keepers 4: They rifle the house for yellow-boyes and pieces of white, which is Gold and Silver, and if they find none, they take the best buleroyes or Lurryes they can find and pike off with them.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Pike, to run away, flee, quit, or leave the Place.
1703		Hell Upon Earth 3: Some are very expert for the Sneak; which is, sneaking into Houses by Night and Day, and pike off with that which is none of their own.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) 15: About the middle of their dinner, he packed up the best of their cloaks, and so piked off.
1728		T. Walker The Quaker’s Opera II i: And when we come unto the Whit, / Our Darbies to behold [...] we bouze the Water Cold. / But as I’ve liv’d to come out again, / If the merry Old Roger I meet, / I’ll tout his Muns, and I’ll snable his Poll / As he Pikes along the Street. [Ibid.] II ii: Zoons, there’s all The Watch and a new Constable; he is not in our Secret yet, so it is proper to pike off.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1753		J. Poulter Discoveries (1774) 30: Come let us pike, we shall napp a rum Bit; that is [...] Come, let us go, we shall take a good Bit. [Ibid.] 43: Pike to the Ruffen; go to the Devil.
1770		Cheats of London Exposed 32: They [i.e. prostitutes] are generally attended, less, as they term it, they should pike off with the Dudds.
1786		Whole Art of Thieving [as cit. 1753].
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 132: The christ’ning being o’er, / They back again soon pik’d it, / To have a dish of lap.
1799		‘Cant Lang. of Thieves’ Monthly Mag. 7 Jan. n.p.: pike to the Spell, let us Let us go to the Play [...] pike to the Start, let us Let us go to London. [...] Pikeing across the Herring Pond Going to Botany Bay.
1808		B. Bradshaw Hist. of Billy Bradshaw 4: Most of my companions had piked off to sea again.
1815		‘Betty Brill’ in Vocal Mag. 1 Apr. 118: Pike off, says she, / You dont’ catch me, / For, Joey, I’m no gudgeon.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 21: That truly classical song, the Christening of Little Joey: ‘When Domine had nam’d the Kid / Then home again they pik’d it; A flash of lightning was prepared / For everyone that lik’d it’.
1828		Lytton Pelham III 333: Tip him the degen, Fib, fake him through and through; if he pikes, we shall all be scragged.
1830		‘Catalogue of Odd Fish’ Fleet-Street Collection 8: I don’t say your doctors are jacks, / But we’re all glad enough when they pike it.
1832		Satirist (London) 6 May 147/1: So we pikes it away for The Chequers, / And calls for the landlord with glee.
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 122: The reward of their havin tag’d as many of you as dont pike off.
1843		Northern Star 6 May 13/3: John Campbell has‘piked his bones off’ to America.
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Matsell Vocabulum 101: Bell whispered in the officer’s ear: ‘Couldn’t you let him pike if I come down with a thimble and ten beans?’.
a.1860		‘Betty Brill’ in Henderson Victorian Street Ballads (1937) 57: Pike off, says she, / You don’t catch me; / For, Joey, I’m no gudgeon.
1861		R.F. Burton City of the Saints 329: A Hindu ‘gonnoff’ would soon ‘pike’ out of a ‘premonitory’ like this.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1877		Leeds Times 24 Nov. 7/6: Bob piked off.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1881		Newcastle Courant 16 Sept. 6/5: ‘We must pike it,’ Nat told her. ‘Fetch a railway guide’.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 7: Pike it - hasty, angry dismissal. Gipsy travelling.
1888		Eve. World (NY) 27 July 2/5: So he piked right off to Payne as soon as he reached town.
1890		‘F. Anstey’ Voces Populi 44: Ben’t Tommy a pikin’ of en, tew? Well done, my sonny, go on!
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 58: Pike, decamp quickly.
1900		Ade More Fables in Sl. (1960) 142: All the Smart Set got ready to pike away for the Heated Term.
1904		Ade ‘The Fable of the Divided Concern’ in True Bills 10: He would pike for the Lodge-Room and let his Partner and the Boy with the Pink Shirt attend to the Store.
1907		R. Service ‘The Spell of the Yukon’ Songs of a Sourdough 17: They’re making my money diminish; / I’m sick of the taste of champagne. / Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish / I’ll pike to the Yukon again.
1909		H. Green Mr. Jackson 49: Say, we been pikin’ along, you an’ me, for a good while, ain’t it?
1916		‘A-No. 1’ Snare of the Road 81: We swung aboard a passenger train [...] to the north of Little Rock to which [...] we had ‘piked’ with this purpose in view.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 91: Reuben J. and son were piking it down the quay next the river on their way to the Isle of Man boat.
1944		Botkin A Treasury of Amer. Folklore 592: How fast I did pike for home.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 103: Swell dudes — all hanging-out, poncing off each other, piking out when the bill comes.

2. (UK Und.) to die.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Pike, [...] to Die. […] Piked off, [...] Dead .
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].

3. to beg, cadge.

2000

Guardian G2 7 Mar. 9: I’m not allowed to [...] call myself an ex-smoker you see, because on occasion I have been known to pike one off a pitying friend.