Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PEEP, n.

1. First appearance; as, the peep of day.
2. A sly look, or a look through a crevice. – Swift.
3. The cry of a chicken.

PEEP, v.i. [Ir. piobam, to pipe, to peep; D. piepen, to pipe, to chirp; G. pfeifen; Sw. pipa; Dan. piper, pipper; L. pipio. The primary sense is to open or to shoot, to thrust out or forth; Dan. pipper frem, to sprout, to bud. This coincides with pipe, fife, &c., Heb. יבב, to cry out, Abib, &c.]

1. To begin to appear; to make the first appearance; to issue or come forth from concealment, as through a narrow avenue. I can see his pride / Peep through each part of him. – Shak. When flowers first peeped. – Dryden.
2. To look through a crevice; to look narrowly, closely or slily. A fool will peep in at the door. – Ecclus. Thou art a maid and must not peep. – Prior.
3. To cry, as chickens; to utter a fine shrill sound, as through a crevice; usually written pip, but without reason, as it is the same word as is here defined, and in America usually pronounced peep.

PEEP'ER, n.

1. A chicken just breaking the shell. – Bramston.
2. In familiar language, the eye.

PEEP'-HOLE, or PEEP'ING-HOLE, n.

A hole or crevice through which one may peep or look without being discovered.

PEEP'ING, ppr.

1. Looking through a crevice.
2. Crying, like a chicken.

PEER, n. [Fr. pair; L. par; It. pari; Sp. par. See Pair.]

1. An equal; one of the same rank. A man may be found far with his peers.
2. An equal in excellence or endowments. In song he never had his peer. – Dryden.
3. A companion; a fellow; an associate. He all his peers in beauty did surpass. – Spenser.
4. A nobleman; as, a peer of the realm; the house of peers so called because noblemen and barons were originally considered as the companions of the king, like L. comes, count. In England, persons belonging to the five degrees of nobility are all peers.

PEER, v.i. [L. pareo; Norm. perer. See Appear.]

1. To come just in sight; to appear; a poetic word. So honor peered, in the meanest habit. – Shak. See how his gorget peers above his gown. – B. Jonson.
2. To look narrowly; to peep; as, the peering day. – Milton. Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads. – Shak.

PEER'AGE, n. [See Peer, an equal.]

1. The rank or dignity of a peer or nobleman. – Blackstone.
2. The body of peers. – Dryden.

PEER'DOM, n.

Peerage. [Not used.]

PEER'ESS, n.

The consort of a peer; a noble lady. – Pope.

PEER'LESS, a.

Unequaled; having no peer or equal as peerless beauty or majesty. – Dryden.

PEER'LESS-LY, adv.

Without an equal.

PEER'LESS-NESS, n.

The state of having no equal.

PEEV'ISH, a. [In Scot. pew is to complain or mutter. It is probably a contracted word, and perhaps from the root of pet, petulant.]

1. Fretful; petulant; apt to mutter and complain; easily vexed or fretted; querulous; hard to please. She is peevish, sullen, froward. – Shak.
2. Expressing discontent and fretfulness. I will not presume / To send such peevish tokens to a king. – Shak.
3. Silly; childish. – Shak.

PEEV'ISH-LY, adv.

Fretfully; petulantly; with discontent and murmuring. Hayward.

PEEV'ISH-NESS, n.

Fretfulness; petulance; disposition to murmur; sourness of temper; as, childish peevishness. When peevishness and spleen succeed. – Swift.

PEG, n. [This is probably from the root of L. pango, pactus, Gr. πηγνυμι; denoting that which fastens, or allied to beak and picket.]

1. A small pointed piece of wood used in fastening boards or other work of wood, &c. It does the office of a nail. The word is applied only to small pieces of wood pointed; to the larger pieces thus pointed we give the name of pins, and pins in ship carpentry are called tree-nails or trenails. Coxe, in his Travels in Russia, speaks of poles or beams fastened into the ground with pegs.
2. The pins of an instrument on which the strings an strained. – Shak.
3. A nickname for Margaret. To take a peg lower, to depress; to lower. – Hudibras.

PEG, v.t.

To fasten with pegs. – Evelyn.

PEG'A-SUS, n.

1. In fabulous history, a winged horse.
2. In astronomy, one of the 48 constellations of Ptolemy.
3. In zoology, a genus of fishes with large pectoral fins, by means of which they take short flights or leaps through the air.

PEG'GED, pp.

Fastened or furnished with pegs.

PEG'GER, n.

One that fastens with pegs. – Sherwood.

PEG'GING, ppr.

Securing with pegs.

PEGM, n. [pem; Gr. πηγμα.]

A sort of moving machine in the old pageants. B. Jonson.

PEG'MA-TITE, n.

Primitive granitic rock, composed essentially of lamellar feldspar and quartz; frequently with mixture of mica. In it are found kaolin, tin tourmalin, beryl, aqua marina, tantale, scheelin and other valuable minerals. – Dict.

PEI-RAS'TIC, a. [Gr. πειραστικος, from πειραω, to strain, attempt.]

1. Attempting; making trial.
2. Treating of or representing trials or attempts; as, the peirastic dialogues of Plato. – Enfield.