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English has two pikes now in common usage, which are probably ultimately the same word. Pike ‘spear’ [OE] goes back to an Old English pīc ‘pointed object’, which is closely related to English peak and pick ‘sharp implement’. It had various specific applications in Old and Middle English, now long defunct, including ‘pickaxe’, ‘spike’, ‘thorn’, ‘point of a shoe’, and ‘pitchfork’ (and pitchfork [13] itself was originally pickfork, a fork with ‘sharp points’; its current form, which emerged in the 16th century, is due to the association with ‘pitching’ or tossing hay on to a cart). But the sense ‘weapon consisting of a long pole with a spike on top’ did not appear until the 16th century, partly inspired by the related Old French pique ‘pike’. Pike the fish [14] was probably also named with the descendant of Old English pīc, in allusion to its long pointed jaws (a similar inspiration can be seen in French brochet ‘pike’, a derivative of broche ‘spit’).
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