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peck. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
peck, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
peck in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English pecken, pekken, variant of Middle English piken, picken, pikken (“to pick, use a pointed implement”). More at pick.
Verb
peck (third-person singular simple present pecks, present participle pecking, simple past and past participle pecked)
- (transitive, intransitive) To strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird).
The birds pecked at their food.
1922 October 26, Virginia Woolf, chapter 2, in Jacob’s Room, Richmond, London: Leonard & Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press, →OCLC; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →OCLC:The rooster had been known to fly on her shoulder and peck her neck, so that now she carried a stick or took one of the children with her when she went to feed the fowls.
- (transitive) To form by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument.
to peck a hole in a tree
- To strike, pick, thrust against, or dig into, with a pointed instrument, especially with repeated quick movements.
- To seize and pick up with the beak, or as if with the beak; to bite; to eat; often with up.
c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons peas.
- 1713 September 14, letter to Joseph Addison, The Guardian, issue 160.
I HAVE laid a wager, with a friend of mine, about the pigeons that used to peck up the corn which belonged to the ants.
- To do something in small, intermittent pieces.
He has been pecking away at that project for some time now.
- To type by searching for each key individually.
- (rare) To type in general.
- To kiss briefly.
Derived terms
Translations
to strike or pierce with the beak or similar
- Abkhaz: please add this translation if you can
- Adyghe: please add this translation if you can
- Afrikaans: please add this translation if you can
- Aghwan: please add this translation if you can
- Akan: please add this translation if you can
- Aklanon: please add this translation if you can
- Albanian: please add this translation if you can
- Arabic: نَقَّرَ (naqqara), نَقَرَ (naqara)
- Moroccan Arabic: نقب (nqab)
- Armenian: կտցել (hy) (ktcʻel)
- Azerbaijani: dənləmək
- Bashkir: соҡоу (soqow)
- Belarusian: дзю́баць impf (dzjúbacʹ), дзю́бнуць pf (dzjúbnucʹ)
- Bulgarian: кълва́ (bg) impf (kǎlvá)
- Burmese: ဆွပ် (my) (hcwap), ဆိတ် (my) (hcit)
- Chinese:
- Cantonese: 啄 (doeng1)
- Mandarin: 啄 (zh) (zhuó)
- Czech: zobat (cs) pf, klovat pf
- Danish: pikke
- Dutch: pikken (nl)
- Faroese: pikka
- Finnish: nokkia (fi)
- French: becqueter (fr)
- Galician: peteirar (gl)
- German: picken (de)
- Greek: τσιμπολογώ (el) (tsimpologó), τσιμπώ (el) (tsimpó)
- Hindi: चोंच मारना (cõc mārnā)
- Hungarian: csipeget (hu)
- Ido: bekagar (io)
- Ingrian: nokkia
- Italian: beccare (it)
- Japanese: ついばむ (tsuibamu)
- Khmer: ចឹក (km) (cək)
- Korean: 쪼다 (ko) (jjoda)
- Lao: ຈີກ (chīk)
- Macedonian: колве impf (kolve), клука impf (kluka)
- Malay: cagut, catuk, pagut, patuk
- Maltese: naqab
- Maori: tongi, timo, timotimo
- Moroccan Amazigh: ⵏⵇⴱ (nqb)
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: pikke (no)
- Old English: pycan
- Persian: نوک زدن (fa) (nok zadan)
- Polish: dziobać (pl) impf
- Portuguese: bicar (pt) m
- Quechua: ch'aphchay, chhutuy
- Romanian: ciuguli (ro)
- Russian: клева́ть (ru) impf (klevátʹ), клю́нуть (ru) pf (kljúnutʹ)
- Serbo-Croatian:
- Cyrillic: зобати impf, кљуцати impf, кљувати impf
- Roman: zobati (sh) impf, kljucati (sh) impf, kljuvati (sh) impf
- Slovak: ďobať impf, zobať impf
- Slovene: kljuvati impf
- Spanish: picotear (es)
- Swedish: picka (sv)
- Tagalog: please add this translation if you can
- Tashelhit: ⵏⵇⴱ (nqb)
- Thai: จิก (th) (jìk)
- Turkish: please add this translation if you can
- Turkmen: please add this translation if you can
- Ukrainian: клюва́ти impf (kljuváty), клю́нути pf (kljúnuty), дзьо́бати impf (dzʹóbaty), дзьоба́ти impf (dzʹobáty), дзьо́бнути pf (dzʹóbnuty), дзю́бати impf (dzjúbaty), дзюба́ти impf (dzjubáty), дзю́бнути pf (dzjúbnuty)
- Vietnamese: mổ (vi)
- Walloon: betchî (wa), kibetchî (wa)
- Yiddish: פּיקן (pikn)
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to do something in small, intermittent pieces
Noun
peck (plural pecks)
- An act of striking with a beak.
- A small kiss.
Translations
act of striking with a beak
Etymology 2
Probably from Anglo-Norman pek, pekke, of uncertain origin.
Noun
peck (plural pecks)
- One quarter of a bushel; a dry measure of eight quarts.
- They picked a peck of wheat.
1851, Henry Mayhew, “Of the Experience of a Fried Fish-seller, and of the Class of Customers”, in London Labour and the London Poor:I took his advice, and went to Billingsgate for the first time in my life, and bought a peck of oysters for 2s. 6d.
- A great deal; a large or excessive quantity.
- She figured most children probably ate a peck of dirt before they turned ten.
Translations
one quarter of a bushel, eight quarts
great deal; a large or excessive quantity
Etymology 3
Variant of pick (“to throw”).
Verb
peck (third-person singular simple present pecks, present participle pecking, simple past and past participle pecked)
- (regional) To throw.
- To lurch forward; especially, of a horse, to stumble after hitting the ground with the toe instead of the flat of the foot.
1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin, published 2013, page 97: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.
Etymology 4
Noun
peck (uncountable)
- Discoloration caused by fungus growth or insects.
- an occurrence of peck in rice
Derived terms
Etymology 5
Noun
peck (uncountable)
- (UK, slang, obsolete) Food.
1821, W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry:Gemmen, have you ordered the peck and booze for the evening?
References
- John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary
Etymology 6
Noun
peck
- Misspelling of pec.