Somebody who hates spending any money and tries to hold onto it forever might be called a “miser,” a “cheapskate,” or a “piker.” That last one, “piker,” has an interesting history, and more than one origin story.
“Piker” was first used in the 1500s, and didn’t have anything to do with money at all — a “piker” in those days was a soldier whose weapon was a pike (a long wooden pole sharpened at the end). For a long time that was the only meaning for “piker,” and eventually the term disappeared. Warfare had developed to the point where the only function of pikes was to make your enemies start laughing if you thought you could fight them with a sharp stick.
After a couple of centuries of vacation, “piker” returned to use in the 1800s. As you might expect, its return to use came at about the same time people found another use for pikes — this time, they were barriers on roadways; an attendant would have to “turn the pike” to let you use the road. That kind of road came to be called a “turnpike.” People who traveled on those roads could be called “pikers,” but the way it worked out was that “piker” was only used as an insult for vagrants and wanderers: “The people called in Acts of Parliament sturdy beggars and vagrants, in the old cant language Abraham men, and in the modern Pikers” (1874).
At about the same time, though, “piker” meant something different in Australia: “‘Pikers’ are wild cattle” (1887). You’ll notice, though, that neither of these meanings has anything directly to do with money. That sense is more connected to the US version of “piker”, which meant a poor migrant from the south — especially, for some reason, Pike County, Missouri. “An extra train of [returning] ‘Pikers’ came in [to Hannibal] about 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon” (1859).
Being poor and from someplace else pretty quickly came with an assumption that a “piker” was just no good, and probably a petty criminal: “Like the Okies of the 20th century, the pikers’ nickname, justly or not, became a synonym for poor, lazy good-for-nothings.”
You can see that as time went on, “piker” was edging closer to having to do with money — after all, if you’re poor, you don’t have much money to spend. But there’s another version of “piker” that’s (ahem) right on the money. It was during the 1850s that “piker” was also used to mean “a man who plays very small amounts. Plays a quarter, wins, pockets the winnings, and keeps at quarters” (1859). This is the source of the figurative meaning of “piker” as someone whose activities, interests, abilities, or holdings are lesser in comparison: “…a pitcher who can do this would make ‘Christy’ Mathewson look like a piker” (1917) — and “Today, the Rockefellers are considered ‘pikers’ when it comes to wealth” (1989).
Since the 1850s, there hasn’t been much news to report about “piker” — but it was a pretty good story up to that point. Compared to this origin story, the one about “cheapskate” looks like a piker.
