This week’s word is about as far from “beefcake” (one of our recent words) as you can get, etymologically speaking. I must thank my friend Jamie Bagge for bringing it to my attention. Mrs. Bagge was one of my high-school drama teachers and must be credited with helping foster my appreciation for the finer arts, as well as the Bard.

But as I was saying, a pipsqueak is a rather small thing, or creature, by definition. It is a colloquialism formed by the merger of “pip-pip” and “squeak.” The first is an imitative word, replicating a high-pitched noise of the repetitive kind, such as that produced by a bicycle or car horn. The latter comes from the Swedish word meaning “to croak” and is also imitative, especially of similar sounds in nature — how a field mouse’s “conversation” would sound to a human is one example that comes to mind.

A pipsqueak was also slang for a kind of deadly, high-velocity artillery shell common on the Western Front during the First World War, as well as for a radio transmitter found in British fighter planes during the Second World War. But let us continue onto to the smaller and less-sad definition of our word.

As noted by the ever-helpful Oxford English Dictionary, the first appearance of the word in written English comes in 1910, in Edward Verrall Lucas’ Slowcoach, with the line, “‘It belongs to one of those measly pip-squeaks,’ said Robert.”

Lucas (1868–1938) was a cultural critic, essayist (or old-fashioned journalist) and biographer known for his light touch on topics large and small — everything from the 19th-century literary giant Charles Lamb (1775–1834), cricket, Pekingese dogs, Japanese scrolls and Chinese rice paper, among other things listed by the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The prolific Lucas wrote for the British satirical magazine Punch for many years and collaborated with his daughter, also a writer, on children’s books.

Speaking of children, stepping back a bit (or a pip), “pip-pip” made its first appearance in Rudyard Kipling’s Traffics and Discoveries in 1904, with the line, “Children sat ... on the damp doorsteps to shout ‘pip-pip’ at the stranger.” Kipling (1865–1936), author of The Jungle Books and Kim, was a complex figure, symbolic of a lost imperial era, as well as a writer and poet with the impeccable talent and wide range of a virtuoso.

In the interest of fairness, we should note that “squeak” appeared first and far earlier — in the late 1300s. A good later example, from about 1600, can be found in Hamlet — of all places — with a line from Act 1, Scene 1, by the title character’s chum Horatio: “In the most high and palmy state of Rome / A little ere the mightiest Julius fell / The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead / Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets...” Creepy, huh?

Strictly used as an adjective, “pipsqueak” first pops up in a line from a Jan. 20, 1946 article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch; quite out of context, it reads, “Specifically, [Senator] Wiley charged that the organization ... has ‘created czars out of pipsqueak juveniles.’” Alexander Wiley (1884-1967) was a longtime republican senator from Wisconsin, and as chairman of the Foreign Relations and Judiciary committees, not exactly a political “pipsqueak.”

I hope you enjoyed this petite presentation on “pipsqueak”, and wish everyone the very best with finals. Indeed, it’s hard to believe that spring quarter is nearly here. If you have any word ideas over our pipsqueak of a break, please send them to features@dailyuw.com; until next time, cheers.

Reach columnist Will Mari at features@dailyuw.com.