pique

Less common meanings

5. 5
   verbreflexivetransitive

   To pride oneself on something ("he piques himself on his punctuality").

   He piques himself on knowing every regular customer by name.

   Good editors pique themselves on catching every error.

   UsagePride yourself on something is much more common today.

   Similarpride, congratulate

   Note

   A reflexive that needs its preposition: you pique yourself on a skill, often a modest one, like Middlemarch's 'She piqued herself on writing a hand…' or Jane Loudon's hunters proud of shooting raccoons. Locke in 1693 could still write 'pique themselves in being kind'. French piquer had the same reflexive meaning, 'to boast about'. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

   • Middlemarch contains the quoted wording. It is narration about Dorothea Brooke. gutenberg.org
   • Jane Loudon's natural-history text describes hunters taking pride in shooting raccoons. gutenberg.org
   • Locke's relevant work, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, was first published in 1693. en.wikipedia.org
   • Locke wrote 'pique themselves in being kind'. en.wikisource.org
   • French piquer has the reflexive meaning 'to boast about'. en.wiktionary.org
6. 6
   verbobsoletereflexivetransitive

   To rouse or stimulate oneself to action or feeling.

   Note

   Gone from use, and easy to misread if you meet it. The same reflexive shape, piquing oneself, now carries the 'pride oneself' meaning, so a modern reader of 'he piqued himself' will hear pride rather than self-encouragement. What follows the verb tells them apart: on plus an accomplishment signals pride, and a spur toward some action signals this older use. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

   • The reflexive sense meaning to excite or stimulate oneself is obsolete. en.wiktionary.org
   • The same reflexive construction also means to pride oneself on something. en.wiktionary.org
7. 7
   nounobsoletecountable

   A matter or point, especially one touching a person's honor.

   Note

   A use that lived inside a single phrase and has since died out: pique of honor. John Dryden's The Hind and the Panther (1687) spells it picque and lists it with shame of change and blind zeal among the motives that keep people defending a cause. It sits close to the wounded-pride noun, since honor is what a slight touches. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • The obsolete noun sense meaning a matter or point occurs in the phrase 'pique of honour'. en.wiktionary.org
   • John Dryden wrote The Hind and the Panther. en.wikipedia.org
   • The poem was first published in 1687. celm.folger.edu
   • The poem spells the word 'picque' and places honour, shame of change, and blind zeal together among motives for maintaining a cause. en.wikisource.org
8. 8
   tropical fleanounobsolete

   Another name for the chigoe, Tunga penetrans, a tropical flea also known as the chigger or jigger.

   Sailors returning from the West Indies complained of piques in their toes.

   A single pique could lodge deep enough to require careful removal.

   Note

   A third, unrelated pique, borrowed from Spanish pique and before that from Central Quechua piki. The other names, chigger, chigoe and jigger, have outlasted it, and this one is obsolete. Anyone meeting it in older writing should read it as the burrowing flea Tunga penetrans, not as a feeling. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • The flea word is a separate borrowing from Spanish pique, ultimately from Central Quechua piki. en.wiktionary.org
   • Pique denotes Tunga penetrans, also called chigger, chigoe and jigger. en.wiktionary.org
   • Tunga penetrans is a flea whose females burrow into the host's skin. en.wikipedia.org
9. 9
   verbobsoletetransitive or intransitive

   In piquet, to score a pique against an opponent.

   Note

   The noun for the piquet score may have turned into a verb for scoring it against someone. It can take an object or stand alone, as in Dryden's Sir Martin Mar-all (1667), where a novice 'will picque and repicque, and Capot me twenty times'. Archaic or obsolete now, it belongs to period card scenes rather than descriptions of a game played today. Source

   Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • The verb can be transitive or intransitive. en.wiktionary.org
   • John Dryden wrote Sir Martin Mar-all. celm.folger.edu
   • It was first published in 1668; 1667 is its first-performance year. celm.folger.edu
   • The quoted words describe a novice repeatedly beating Sir Martin at piquet; Sir Martin is the speaker. gutenberg.org
10. 10
    eating disordernounobsolete

    An eating disorder characterized by appetite and craving for non-edible substances; a synonym of pica.

    Similarpica

    Note

    A magpie hides behind this one. It is a variant of pica, from Latin pica 'magpie', on the idea that the bird will eat almost anything. Samuel Butler's Hudibras turns the disorder into satire about a world that 'swallows Non-sense and a Lie' and, even when it 'have the Pique', craves only what is wrong. The form is obsolete and rare, and the medical term is pica.

11. 11
    noundated

    Enmity or ill feeling; a feeling of animosity or a dispute.

    Not so Madame de Soissons, who at once divined his intentions and watched his progress, internally resolving to render him every ill office pique could suggest, or ridicule execute.

    1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Francesca Carrara
12. 12
    noundialectal

    A small biting fly; a midge, sand fly, or punkie.
13. 13
    noun

    In the card game piquet, a bonus of thirty points won by the elder hand for reaching thirty points in declarations and play before the opponent has scored anything.