Pikey

Pikey (/ˈpaɪkiː/; also spelled pikie, pykie)[1][2] is an ethnic slur referring to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people. It is used mainly in the United Kingdom and in Ireland to refer to people who belong to groups which had a traditional travelling lifestyle.[3][4] Groups referred to with this term include Irish Travellers, English Gypsies, Welsh Kale, Scottish Lowland Travellers, Scottish Highland Travellers, and Funfair Travellers. These groups consider the term to be extremely offensive.[5][6]

It is used by extension as a classist insult against marginalised working class communities, similar to the term chav.[7]

  1. ^ Marcus, Geetha (25 January 2019). Gypsy and Traveller Girls: Silence, Agency and Power. Springer. ISBN 9783030037031 – via Google Books. pikie.
  2. ^ Fetherston, Drew (17 July 1997). The Chunnel: The Amazing Story of the Undersea Crossing of the English Channel. Times Books. ISBN 9780812921984 – via Internet Archive. pykie.
  3. ^ "BBC – Suffolk – People – "Very Important Pikey"". BBC. Retrieved 8 November 2009. It was because there's always someone out there, I feared, who was going to tap me on the shoulder and say "you dear, who do you think you are and where do you get off at, you're a gyspy, you're a pikey
  4. ^ "New Statesman – Andrew Billen – Common problem". New Statesman. Retrieved 8 November 2009. Then, a year or so ago, I noticed the words "pikey" and "chav" were being used as synonyms for "common
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference offensive was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Gentleman, Amelia (16 May 2017). "Fighting Gypsy discrimination: 'What people ask me is insulting'". The Guardian – via www.theguardian.com.
  7. ^ Gidley, Ben; Rooke, Alison (2010). "Asdatown: The Intersections of Classed Places and Identities". In Taylor, Yvette (ed.). Classed Intersections. Routledge.