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Pique   /pik/   Listen
noun
Pique  n.  A cotton fabric, figured in the loom, used as a dress goods for women and children, and for vestings, etc.


Pique  n.  (Zool.) The jigger. See Jigger.


Pique  n.  
1.
A feeling of hurt, vexation, or resentment, awakened by a social slight or injury; irritation of the feelings, as through wounded pride; stinging vexation. "Men take up piques and displeasures." "Wars had arisen... upon a personal pique."
2.
Keenly felt desire; a longing. "Though it have the pique, and long, 'Tis still for something in the wrong."
3.
(Card Playing) In piquet, the right of the elder hand to count thirty in hand, or to play before the adversary counts one.
Synonyms: Displeasure; irritation; grudge; spite. Pique, Spite, Grudge. Pique denotes a quick and often transient sense of resentment for some supposed neglect or injury, but it is not marked by malevolence. Spite is a stronger term, denoting settled ill will or malice, with a desire to injure, as the result of extreme irritation. Grudge goes still further, denoting cherished and secret enmity, with an unforgiving spirit. A pique is usually of recent date; a grudge is that which has long subsisted; spite implies a disposition to cross or vex others.


verb
Pique  v. t.  (past & past part. piqued; pres. part. piquing)  
1.
To wound the pride of; to sting; to nettle; to irritate; to fret; to offend; to excite to anger. "Pique her, and soothe in turn."
2.
To excite to action by causing resentment or jealousy; to stimulate; to prick; as, to pique ambition, or curiosity.
3.
To pride or value; used reflexively. "Men... pique themselves upon their skill."
Synonyms: To offend; displease; irritate; provoke; fret; nettle; sting; goad; stimulate.


Pique  v. i.  To cause annoyance or irritation. "Every verse hath something in it that piques."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Pique" Quotes from Famous Books



... made her want of vivid religious conviction the excuse for not proposing to her, but it is not easy to put aside the conviction that it was her want of a fortune which actuated him most strongly. Finally, he tries to pique her by telling her that he "knows of parties" in the city of Hanover "who might bring him much honour and comfort" were he "not afraid of losing (Catharine Trotter's) friendship." They write to one another with extreme formality, but that proves nothing. ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... should not have shown it. This is another perverse and suicidal inconsistency on a woman's part: she should never exhibit these small meannesses of pique, sullen tempers, jealousy, to her husband, since they place her wholly at a disadvantage, making her less attractive than the objects she ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... spread in a kitchen metamorphosed with decorations of crinkled paper, they found, buttressed into a corner by the freshly tuned piano, the Rye Quartet, consisting of the piano-tuner himself, his wife, who played the 'cello, and his two daughters with fiddles and white pique frocks. At first the music was rather an embarrassment, for while it played eating and conversation were alike suspended, and the guests stood with open mouths and cooling cups of tea till Mr. Plummer's final chords released ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... had been called Vanushka and Vanka and had been ready to punch a man in the face and turn the house upside down over twenty kopecks, was dressed devilishly well. He had on a broad-brimmed straw hat, exquisite brilliant boots, a pique waistcoat. . . . Thousands of suns, big and little, glistened on his watch-chain. With much chic he held in his right hand his gloves ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... aware of the cause of it, neither forgot nor forgave it.43 The anecdote is reported not on the highest authority. It may be true; but it is unnecessary to look for the motives of Pizarro's conduct in personal pique, when so many proofs are to be discerned of a dark and ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott


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