bike

BYK/baɪk/

9 meanings of bike

1
nounabbreviationclipping
Clipping of bicycle.
A new bike with thinner tires made her commute much faster.
The repair shop tuned his bike and replaced the worn brake pads.
Note
The short form dates from 1882, and its sound hides a small puzzle: bicycle has an s-sound where bike has a k. One account takes the k from the c's of bi(cy)c(le). Another says speakers restored the hard sound, the way electric sits beside electricity. Today it is the form that names the types: road bike, mountain bike, gravel bike.
2
nounabbreviationclipping
Clipping of motorbike.
The mechanic tuned her bike before the long ride to the coast.
He revved the bike at the light, drowning out the conversation.
Note
The motorized twin of the bicycle clipping is spelled and pronounced the same way, so the surrounding words do the sorting: engines and mechanics point here, pedals and commuting point the other way. The clipping also inherits a split from motorbike. In American use a motorbike can be specifically a small, light motorcycle, while more generally it is simply an informal word for any motorcycle.
3
verbcolloquialintransitive
To travel on a bicycle, or sometimes on a motorcycle.
On clear mornings they bike for an hour before breakfast.
She was biking through the park when the storm rolled in.
Similarcycle, ride, pedal
4
verbcolloquialintransitive
To travel from one place to another by bicycle.
Commuters who bike to the office avoid the worst of the rush-hour traffic.
We biked across the entire county over the long weekend.
Similarcycle, ride, pedal
5
verbcolloquialtransitive
To transport something by bicycle.
Couriers bike packages across the city faster than any delivery van.
He biked the spare parts out to the stranded riders on the ridge.
Note
Here the bicycle carries something other than the rider, as when a butcher's boy bikes parcels of meat around Dronfield. Like send or post, it can take two objects: in I biked them the letters, the recipient comes first and the cargo second. Contrast the travel sense, where the verb is followed only by a destination, never by a load.
6
nouncountable
A vehicle that resembles a bicycle or motorcycle in some respect, such as having pedals, handlebars, or a saddle.
The exhibition featured an odd bike steered with foot pedals rather than a wheel.
Hand-cranked bikes let riders without leg strength power themselves along the path.
Similarcycle
Note
The stretched sense, where a handlebar or a saddle is enough to earn the name. It covers the pedal-powered beer bikes that Amsterdam banned from its center in 2017, noted in Michael Hearst's Unconventional Vehicles (2021), and the hovering machines of science fiction. The word follows how the vehicle is ridden and steered, not how many wheels it has or whether it touches the ground.
7
nounslangderogatoryUKabbreviationellipsis
Ellipsis of village bike.
Behind her back, a few of the regulars at the pub called her the local bike.
He sneered that she was the neighborhood bike, and the whole table went quiet.
Note
A clipped British insult. The full phrase, village bike, pictures a local woman as something anyone in the place may ride, and the short form keeps the sneer. It belongs with slapper and slag, is always derogatory, and usually comes with the, as in the local bike. Learn to recognize it rather than use it, because it is meant to wound and shame.
8
noundialectalNorthern EnglandScotlandcountable
A beehive, or a nest built by wasps, hornets, or ants.
The farmer smoked out a bike of hornets that had taken over the barn rafters.
A disturbed bike of ants sent workers streaming across the kitchen floor.
Similarnest, hive, swarm
Note
A different word altogether, unrelated to the cycle. It comes from Middle English bike or byke, a nest of wild bees or a honeycomb, and its origin is unknown: perhaps an Old English word for beekeeper, perhaps one for a belly or container. It lives on in Scots and northern English, often spelled byke, as in the wasp's byke hidden in a tree in Robin Jenkins's The Cone-Gatherers (1955).
9
noundialectalScotlandcollectivecountable
A crowd of people.
A noisy bike of protesters filled the square by midday.
She pushed through the bike of commuters to reach the platform.
Similarcrowd, throng, mob, swarm
Note
The swarm turned human. By extension, the Scots word for a bees' nest came to mean a crowd, much as English calls a busy place a hive. It is a collective noun, chiefly Scottish, and it treats the people as one mass rather than as individuals. It takes the same of-phrase as its insect parent: a bike of protesters, like a bike of hornets.

Practice

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Origins

Meanings 1–7

A clipping of "bicycle," first attested in 1882. There are competing explanations for why it ends in a /k/ sound rather than /s/, likely tied to how speakers reanalyzed the word and to the spelling with the letter "c."

Meanings 8–9

From Middle English "bike" or "byke" (a nest of wild bees or wasps, or a honeycomb), of unknown origin. It may perhaps be a back-formation of Middle English "*bykere" (beekeeper), from Old English "bēocere," or from Old English "*bȳc," a byform of "būc" (belly, vessel, container).