> 
> Oooh - dialect.  
> 
> I had to look up piker.  
> The tool? or process used to clear out the touch-hole   (scottish usage)  - I
guess that the tool, or process is somewhat like a full size pike, clearing out
someones innards, so to clear your touch-hole, you would ‘pike it’
> (english dialect dictionary  https://archive.org/details/englishdiale
ctdi04wriguoft/page/168/mode/2up?q=piker">https://archive.org/details/englishdia
lectdi04wriguoft/page/168/mode/2up?q=piker <https://archive.org/det
ails/englishdialectdi04wriguoft/page/168/mode/2up?q=piker">https://archive.org/d
etails/englishdialectdi04wriguoft/page/168/mode/2up?q=piker> )
> 
> on page 500 though, we find that it is indeed a tool.  ’The birse for cleaning
out the pan  and the piker for the motion hole’
> 


> Hod on though.  More contemporary references exist, and they say 
> 
> PIKER
> 1. (Animals) Austral a wild bullock
> 2. Austral and NZ a useless person; failure
> 3. US and Austral and NZ a lazy person; shirker
> 4. a mean person
> [C19: perhaps related to pike3]
> 
> and also 
> 
> PIKER
> 
> 1. a person who does anything in a contemptibly small or cheap way.
> 2. a person who gambles or speculates in a cautious way.
> [1275–1325; Middle English: petty thief =pik(en) to pick1 + -er -er1; compare
dial. (N England, Scots, Hiberno-E) pike topick1]
> 
> 


My 1867 Sailor’s Word Book (one of 2 pretty definitive Englsih sailing term
references) does not have “piker” in it.  It says a pike is the usual weapon,
precurser to the bayonet, or a fish, but that’s it.  On a half dozen ships that
I have sailed in, the small pointed brass rod that pricks open the cartridge
wall once it is in the gun barrel is called a prick, and my book uses this
definition.  But that also may have been what Bill meant.  I have never known
the actual definition of piker, but got a  sense of a general ner-do-well, so it
is good to see it - now I can use the term with purpose and confidence.  And
remember, there are no cannon aboard a ship, only guns.

Ed Minch