Word.ws English Dictionary

peak

/piːk/

peak noun: a point; the sharp end or top of anything that terminates in a point; as, the peak, or front, of a cap. Also the ellipsis of peak trans.

Noun

peak (plural peaks)

  1. A point; the sharp end or top of anything that terminates in a point; as, the peak, or front, of a cap.
    • A less risky method is to lift your whisk or beater to check the condition of the peaks of the egg whites; the foam should be just stiff enough to stand up in well-defined, unwavering peaks.2002, Joy of Cooking: All About Cookies, →ISBN, page 29
  2. The highest value reached by some quantity in a time period.
    • The stock market reached a peak in September 1929.
    • By last year, family income was 8 percent lower than it had been 11 years earlier, at its peak in 2000, according to inflation-adjusted numbers from the Census Bureau.2012 October 23, David Leonhardt, New York Times, retrieved 24 Oct 2012
  3. The top, or one of the tops, of a hill, mountain, or range, ending in a point.
    • They reached the peak after 8 hours of climbing.
    Synonyms:
    summit, top
  4. The whole hill or mountain, especially when isolated.
    • To the South we observed a large plain some ten miles wide, with snowy peaks rising on the farther side. In front was a hill projecting into the plain, on which stood a mani wall; and this latter discovery made me feel quite confident that I was on the high road to Lhassa.1898, Arnold Henry Savage Landor, chapter 62, in In the Forbidden Land
  5. (UK) visor (horizontal part of a cap sticking out in front and shading the wearer's eyes)
  6. The upper aftermost corner of a fore-and-aft sail.
    • peak-halyards
    • peak-brails
  7. The narrow part of a vessel's bow, or the hold within it.
  8. The extremity of an anchor fluke; the bill.
  9. A local maximum of a function, e.g. for sine waves, each point at which the value of y is at its maximum.
  10. (euphemistic) Orgasm.
    • As she came to her peak, he was with her all the way, making her crash, moan, say his name again and again.2013 April 23, Crystal Green, Made in Texas!, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 214
  11. (Internet, uncountable) Something of exceptional quality.
    • There's so much peak on this website!

Verb (1)

peak (third-person singular simple present peaks, present participle peaking, simple past and past participle peaked)

  1. (transitive) To raise the point of (a gaff) closer to perpendicular.
  2. (transitive) To exceed the maximum signal amplitude of (a piece of equipment), resulting in clipping of the signal.
  3. (intransitive) To reach a highest degree or maximum.
    • Historians argue about when the Roman Empire began to peak and ultimately decay.
  4. (intransitive) To rise or extend into a peak or point; to form, or appear as, a peak.
    • There peaketh up a mightie high mounte.1659, T[itus] Livius [i.e., Livy], “(please specify the book number)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Romane Historie […], London: […] W. Hunt, for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC
  5. (intransitive) To reach the highest level of success or greatness in one's lifetime.
  6. (intransitive) To reach the point of strongest effect from a drug.

Adjective

peak (comparative more peak, superlative most peak)

  1. At the greatest extent; maximum.
    • peak oil, Peak TV
  2. (slang) Maximal, quintessential, archetypical, strictly with positive connotations; representing the culmination of its type.
    • Knowing obscure 19th-century slang is peak nerd.
    • These icons are simply unmatched and timeless. They can’t even get away from them to this day, they just flattened them. Vista was peak design and we’ve regressed since then.2026 July 8, u/DAPOPOBEFASTONYOAZZ, r/WindowsVista (Reddit post), archived from the original on 11 Jul 2026
  3. (Multicultural-London-English) Bad.
    • When they're tryna get the girl to the crib and she leaves, it's peak / Tryna keep it discreet and she tweets, it's peak / See me rolling with 20 man deep, it's peak / Yo rudeboy, pull up, repeat, it's peak2015, “Its Peak”, performed by Tinie Tempah (featuring Stormzy and Bugzy Malone)
    • Tempting, but I think it's actually something I need to do. Like, I get what they did was peak, but I have to take some responsibility, you know?2023, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, directed by Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane, spoken by Dom (David Jonsson)
  4. (Multicultural-London-English) Unlucky; unfortunate.
    • You didn't get a spot? That's peak.
  5. (Internet) Very good or high-quality.
    • That movie last night was so peak.
    • [Siri:] Joz said, team, these apricots are peak. Have they always been this good? Why has no one told me?2026 June 8, Apple, 37:56 from the start, in WWDC 2026 Keynote

Verb (2)

peak (third-person singular simple present peaks, present participle peaking, simple past and past participle peaked)

  1. (intransitive) To become sick or wan.
  2. (intransitive) To acquire sharpness of figure or features; hence, to look thin or sickly.
    • Dwindle, peak, and pine.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  3. (intransitive) To pry; to peep slyly.

Proper noun capitalized: Peak

Peak (plural Peaks)

  1. A surname.

Also used as

peak is also the ellipsis of peak trans.

peak is also the alternative form of peag.

peak is also the misspelling of pique.

peak meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

peak in Hindi

mountain top
चोटी coṭī, शिखर śikhar
highest value reached
सर्वोच्च sarvocc

peak in Urdu

mountain top
چوٹی coṭī, شکھر

peak in Bengali

শিখর

peak in Telugu

శిఖరం, పీక్
More languagesFewer languages
peak in Malayalam
കൊടുമുടി koṭumuṭi, ഉച്ചി ucci
peak in Kannada
ಶಿಖರ
peak in Gujarati
શિખર śikhar
peak in Odia
ଶିଖର
peak in Arabic
قِمَّة qimma, أَوْجٌ ʔawjun, ذُرْوَةٌ ḏurwatun
peak in Malay
puncak, kemuncak
peak in Persian
چکاد čekâd, قله qolle, اوج owj
peak in Vietnamese
đỉnh

Examples of peak in a sentence

  • The effective voltage of an alternating current is 0.7 times its peak voltage.
  • His traversal of the mountains allowed him a view from the peak.
  • Real estate prices have come down since the peak of the boom.

All 40 example sentences with peak

Synonyms of peak

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of peak

Forms of peak

Noun
pluralpeaks
Verb
third-person singular presentpeaks
present participlepeaking
past participlepeaked
pastpeaked
Adjective
comparativemore peak
superlativemost peak
Proper noun
pluralPeaks

Past tense of peak: peaked

Plural of peak: peaks

Origin of peak

From earlier peake, peek, peke, from Middle English pek (in place names), itself an alteration of pike, pyke, pyk (“a sharp point, pike”), from Old English pīc, piic (“a pike, needle, pin, peak, pinnacle”), from Proto-West Germanic *pīk, from Proto-Germanic *pīkaz (“peak”). Cognate with Dutch piek (“pike, point, summit, peak”), Danish pik (“pike, peak”), Swedish pik (“pike, lance, point, peak”), Norwegian pik (“peak, summit”). More at pike.

Unknown. Perhaps related to Etymology 1 above in the sense of "becoming pointed" through emaciation.

* As an English surname, from several placenames in England derived from the noun peak or its source. * Also as an English surname, shortened from Peacock. * As an Irish surname, shortened from McPeak.

Words formed from peak

Phrases with peak

23 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with peak

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about peak

What does peak mean?
Peak means a point; the sharp end or top of anything that terminates in a point; as, the peak, or front, of a cap.
What is peak in Hindi?
Peak in Hindi is चोटी (coṭī), शिखर (śikhar), सर्वोच्च (sarvocc). See Peak meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is peak?
Peak can be a noun, a verb, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce peak?
Peak is pronounced /piːk/.
What is the plural of peak?
The plural of peak is peaks.

Words near peak in the dictionary

  1. peaiman
  2. peaimen
  3. peajacket
  4. peajacketed
  5. peajackets
  6. peak
  7. Peak 15
  8. peak bagging
  9. peak bodies
  10. peak body
  11. Peak Dale

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: peak (page history and authors); Peak (page history and authors); peak (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); peak (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); peak (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); peak (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-peak.wav.

Cite this entry: “peak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/peak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.