Emily Dickinson Lexicon

PEC'CANT-LY, adv.

Sinfully; transgressingly.

PEC-CA'VI, v. [L. I have offended.]

A colloquial word used to express confession or acknowledgment of an offense. – Aubrey.

PECH'BLEND, n. [G. pech, pitch, and blende, blend.]

Pitchblend, an ore of uranium; a metallic substance found in masses, or stratified with earths or with other minerals, in Swedish and Saxon mines. It is of a blackish color, inclining to a deep steel gray, and one kind has a mixture of spots of red. – Nicholson.

PE-CIL'O-PODE, n. [Gr. ποικιλος, various, and πους, foot.]

A crustaceous animal having various kinds of feet; prehensory, ambulatory, branchial and natatory. [The body is generally invested with a shell. 1841] – Kirby.

PECK, n. [Arm. peck, a fourth; Fr. picotin.]

1. The fourth part of a bushel; a dry measure of eight quarts; us, a peck of wheat or oats.
2. In low language, a great deal; as, to be in a peck of troubles. Qu. pack.

PECK, v.t. [It. beccare; Sp. picar; Fr. becqueter; D. piken; G. picken; Dan. pikker. This verb is connected with the nouns beak and pike.]

1. To strike with the beak; to thrust the beak into, as a bird that pecks a hole in a tree.
2. To strike with a pointed instrument, or to delve or dig with any thing pointed, as with a pick-ax. – Carew.
3. To pick up food with the beak. – Dryden.
4. To strike with small and repeated blows; to strike in a manner to make small impressions. In this sense, the verb is generally intransitive. We say, to peck at. – South. [This verb and pick are radically the same.]

PECK'ED, pp.

Struck or penetrated with a beak or pointed instrument.

PECK'ER, n.

One that pecks; bird that pecks holes in trees; a woodpecker. – Dryden.

PECKING, ppr.

Striking with the bill; thrusting the beat into; thrusting into with a pointed instrument; taking up food with the beak.

PECK-LED, a. [for Speckled, not used. – Walton.]

PEC'TATE, n.

A compound of pectic acid with a base.

PEC'TIC-A'CID, n. [Gr. πηκτις, coagulum.]

The acid of many species of vegetables, so called from its tendency to form a jelly. – Ure.

PEC'TIN, n. [Gr. πηκτος.]

The gelatinizing principle of certain vegetables, as apples.

PEC'TIN-AL, a. [L. pecten, a comb; pecto, to comb, Gr. πεκτεω, from πεκω.]

Pertaining to a comb; resembling a comb.

PEC'TIN-AL, n.

A fish whose bones resemble the teeth of a comb. – Brown.

PEC'TIN-ATE, or PEC'TIN-A-TED, a. [from L. pecten, a comb.]

Having resemblance to the teeth of a comb. In botany, pectinate leaf is a sort of pinnate leaf, in which the leaflets are toothed like a comb. – Martyn. A mineral is pectinated, when it presents short filaments crystals or branches, nearly parallel and equidistant. – Phillips.

PEC-TIN-A'TION, n.

1. The state of being pectinated.
2. A combing; the combing of the head. – Cyc.

PEC'TIN-I-BRAN-CHI-ATE, a. [L. pecten and branchiæ.]

In malacology, having pectinated gills.

PEC'TIN-ITE, n. [L. pecten, a comb.]

A fossil pectin or scallop, a scallop petrified. – Kirwan.

PEC'TO-RAL, a. [L. pectoralis, from pectus, breast.]

Pertaining to the breast; as, the pectoral muscles; pectoral medicines. The pectoral fins of a fish are situated on the sides of the fish behind the gills.

PECTO-RAL, n.

1. A breastplate. – Encyc. Johnson.
2. A sacerdotal habit or vestment worn by the Jewish high priest, called in our version of the Bible, a breastplate. – Encyc.
3. A medicine adopted to cure or relieve complaints of the breast and lungs.

PEC-TO-RI-LO'QUI-AL, a.

Pertaining to or of the nature of pectoriloquy.

PEC-TO-RIL'O-QUY, a. [L. pectus, the breast, and loquor, to speak – a speaking from the breast.]

In medicine, when a patient's voice, distinctly articulates seems to proceed from the point of the chest on which the ear or a stethoscope is placed, there is said to be pectoriloquy. – Collin. An exalted degree of bronchophony, resembling the sound heard by placing a stethoscope on the trachea when a person speaks. – Hall.

PEC-TUNC'U-LUS, n.

A genus of bivalve shells resembling the Arca. – Mantell.

PEC'U-LATE, v.i. [L. peculatus, peculor, from peculium, private property, from pecus, cattle.]

1. To defraud the public of money or goods intrusted to one's care, by appropriating the property to one's own use; to defraud by embezzlement.
2. Among civilians, to steal. – Encyc.