chi-ike

English

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Interjection

chi-ike

1. (costermongers' slang) Used as a salute or word of praise.

Noun

chi-ike (plural chi-ikes)

1. (UK, obsolete) A hearty, often light-heartedly sarcastic, greeting.
   • 2006, Edwin James Milliken, edited by Patricia Marks, The ′Arry Ballads: An Annotated Collection of the Verse Letters by Punch Editor E.J. Milliken, page 95:

     I lifted my lamps and saw BILLY. We did a good chi-ike, you bet!
     “Watcher, BILLY, old buster!” says I, […]

2. (slang, obsolete, Australia, New Zealand) A noisy hubbub

Verb

chi-ike (third-person singular simple present chi-ikes, present participle chi-iking, simple past and past participle chi-iked)

1. (UK) To mock or jeer; to chiack.
   • 1924, “Causeway”, in Neville Braybrooke, editor, The Wind and the Rain, page 21:

     Uncle Frank wouldn′t have liked it, and I knew how the chaps would laugh and chi-ike me for chumming up with a silly old Chinky.

   • 1939, Nicholas Monsarrat, This Is the Schoolroom, published 2000, page 8:

     Round about us windows began to bang upwards; a policeman on the corner looked away, pretending not to hear; a couple of tarts started to chi-ike us and then shut up suddenly.

References

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S.C. Weiner, eds. "chi-hike", The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989)
• John C. Hotten "Chi-ike" A dictionary of modern slang, cant, and vulgar words (1874)