another word of the week

pique

In the space of a week, two of my best friends suggested this and that in itself piqued (sorry, not sorry) my interest. Pique – pretty obviously – comes from French, the verb piquer meaning originally to anger or annoy (literally to prick or sting), and there are equivalent verbs in Occitan, Spanish and Italian – all from the 16^th-17^thcenturies. It’s both a noun and a (reflexive) verb. You can have a fit of pique (a tantrum), have your interest piqued (as above), or even pique (take pride in) yourself on account of a particular virtue, à la Marie Antoinette who allegedly ‘delighted in the spectacle of her own kindness’. Unsurprisingly, pique was at the height of its usage in the 17-1800s when salons, courts and diplomatic scuffles provided the necessary material and individuals to do the piquing.

In one of the oldest card games on record (piquet), the winning of thirty points by one player before any other players score was termed a pique. This automatically garnered said player a further 60 points (known as a repique). Pique in French also means the spade suit in cards.

Piqué is used to describe a stiff fabric with a raised pattern, a style of ornamentation involving dots of gold or silver inlaid in tortoiseshell dating back to the 17^th century and a ballet step – on the point of the leading foot, all with the sense of pricking, pointing or piercing.

Finally, peak, as in the top of a mountain, comes jointly from the word pike (from Middle Dutch) and the French pique which arrived in English around the same time in the mid 1600s, making it – joyfully – both a homonym and (almost) a synonym. Peak (or pique) excitement….