Pike n.
1. Mil. A foot soldier's weapon, consisting of a long wooden shaft or staff, with a pointed steel head. It is now superseded by the bayonet.
2. A pointed head or spike; esp., one in the center of a shield or target.
3. A hayfork. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.]
4. A pick. [Prov. Eng.]
5. A pointed or peaked hill. [R.]
6. A large haycock. [Prov. Eng.]
7. A turnpike; a toll bar.
8. Zool. sing. & pl. A large fresh-water fish (Esox lucius), found in Europe and America, highly valued as a food fish; -- called also pickerel, gedd, luce, and jack.
Note: ☞ Blue pike, grass pike, green pike, wall-eyed pike, and yellow pike, are names, not of true pike, but of the wall-eye. See Wall-eye.
Gar pike. See under Gar.
Pike perch Zool., any fresh-water fish of the genus Stizostedion (formerly Lucioperca). See Wall-eye, and Sauger.
Pike pole, a long pole with a pike in one end, used in directing floating logs.
Pike whale Zool., a finback whale of the North Atlantic (Balænoptera rostrata), having an elongated snout; -- called also piked whale.
Sand pike Zool., the lizard fish.
Sea pike Zool., the garfish (a).
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Wall-eye n.
1. An eye in which the iris is of a very light gray or whitish color; -- said usually of horses.
Note: ☞ Jonson has defined wall-eye to be “a disease in the crystalline humor of the eye; glaucoma.” But glaucoma is not a disease of the crystalline humor, nor is wall-eye a disease at all, but merely a natural blemish. --Tully. In the north of England, as Brockett states, persons are said to be wall-eyed when the white of the eye is very large and distorted, or on one side.
2. Zool. (a) An American fresh-water food fish (Stizostedion vitreum) having large and prominent eyes; -- called also glasseye, pike perch, yellow pike, and wall-eyed perch. (b) A California surf fish (Holconotus argenteus). (c) The alewife; -- called also wall-eyed herring.
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pike perch
n : any of several pike-like fishes of the perch family [syn: pike-perch]