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Peck
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 2 A place in the United States:; A city in Idaho.
- 3 A place in the United States:; An unincorporated community in Sedgwick County and Sumner County, Kansas.
- 4 A place in the United States:; A village in Michigan.
- 5 A place in the United States:; A town in Wisconsin.
- 1 An act of striking with a beak.
- 2 One quarter of a bushel; a dry measure of eight quarts; equal to approximately 9092 cubic centimeters in the imperial system or 8810 cubic centimeters in the U.S. system.
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
- 3 Discoloration caused by fungus growth or insects. uncountable
"an occurrence of peck in rice"
- 4 Food. UK, obsolete, slang, uncountable
"Gemmen, have you ordered the peck and booze for the evening?"
- 5 Misspelling of pec. alt-of, misspelling
Show 8 more definitions
- 6 a light kiss wordnet
- 7 A small kiss.
- 8 Similar units in other systems of measure, such as the Roman modius or Chinese dou.
- 9 bite by a bird wordnet
- 10 A great deal; a large or excessive quantity.
"She figured most children probably ate a peck of dirt before they turned ten."
- 11 a United States dry measure equal to 8 quarts or 537.605 cubic inches wordnet
- 12 a British imperial capacity measure (liquid or dry) equal to 2 gallons wordnet
- 13 (often followed by ‘of’) a large number or amount or extent wordnet
- 1 To strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird). ambitransitive
"The birds pecked at their food."
- 2 To throw. regional
- 3 bother persistently with trivial complaints wordnet
- 4 To form by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument. transitive
"to peck a hole in a tree"
- 5 To lurch forward; especially, of a horse, to stumble after hitting the ground with the toe instead of the flat of the foot.
"Anyhow, one of them fell, another one pecked badly, and Jerry disengaged himself from the group to scuttle up the short strip of meadow to win by a length."
Show 10 more definitions
- 6 eat like a bird wordnet
- 7 To strike, pick, thrust against, or dig into, with a pointed instrument, especially with repeated quick movements.
- 8 eat by pecking at, like a bird wordnet
- 9 To seize and pick up with the beak, or as if with the beak; to bite; to eat; often with up.
"This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons peas."
- 10 hit lightly with a picking motion wordnet
- 11 To do something in small, intermittent pieces.
"He has been pecking away at that project for some time now."
- 12 kiss lightly wordnet
- 13 To type by searching for each key individually.
- 14 To type in general. rare
- 15 To kiss briefly.
"At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls."
Etymology
From Middle English pecken, pekken, variant of Middle English piken, picken, pikken (“to pick, use a pointed implement”). More at pick.
From Middle English pecken, pekken, variant of Middle English piken, picken, pikken (“to pick, use a pointed implement”). More at pick.
Probably from Anglo-Norman pek, pekke, of uncertain origin.
Variant of pick (“to throw”).
* As an English surname, variant of Speake with loss of the initial letter. * Also as an English (and sometimes Irish) surname, variant of Peak, Petch, Peach. * As a south German surname, variant of Beck. Compare Pek, also found in Poland. * As a Dutch and north German surname, from pek (“pitch, tar, resin”). * As a Hungarian, Czech, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Slovene surname, Americanized and Germanized from Pek, Pék meaning "baker," itself ultimately from the German verb backen.
See also for "peck"
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