Word.ws English Dictionary

peat

UK/piːt/

peat noun: soil formed of dead but not fully decayed plants found in bog areas, often burned as fuel.

peat: soil formed of dead but not fully decayed plants found in bog areas, often burned as fuel
Image: David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

peat (countable and uncountable, plural peats)

  1. Soil formed of dead but not fully decayed plants found in bog areas, often burned as fuel.
    • On the return journey the engine ran short of coal, and came to a stand near Penygroes through shortage of steam. Fortunately, there was some peat in a nearby field, which the enginemen dug and the directors helped to carry to the engine. Steam was soon raised and the story had a happy ending!1958 September, J. M. Dunn, “The Afonwen Line—1”, in Railway Magazine, pages 595-596

Noun (2)

peat (plural peats)

  1. (obsolete) A pet, a darling; a woman.
    • And let it not displease thee, good Bianca, / For I will love thee ne'er the less, my girl. / A pretty peat!c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...

Proper noun capitalized: Peat

Peat

  1. A surname transferred from the given name.

peat meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Arabic

peat in Tamil

குழைச்சேறு, தொளி, முற்றாநிலக்கரி, தூள் நிலக்கரி, பீட், முதிராநிலக்கரி

peat in Malayalam

പീറ്റ്, വിറകിനുപയോഗിക്കുന്ന കാണപ്പുൽക്കറ്റ, വിറകിനായി ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്ന സസ്യപദാർത്ഥം

peat in Kannada

ಸೊಪ್ಪು ಸದೆ, ಕಸಕಡ್ಡಿ, ಕೊಳೆಸೊಪ್ಪು

peat in Arabic

soil
خُثّ ḵuṯṯ
More languagesFewer languages
peat in Persian
تورب turb, پوده pude

Examples of peat in a sentence

  • She mixed up peat moss, humus, and compost to make potting soil.
  • The soft peat was springy under her feet.
  • Only about 25% of Scotch whiskies have any peat smoke character at all.

All 23 example sentences with peat

Forms of peat

pluralpeats

Plural of peat: peats

Origin of peat

Inherited from Northern Middle English pete (recorded in Latin text as peta), of uncertain origin; perhaps from a Celtic language such as an unattested Pictish or Brythonic source, in turn possibly from Proto-Brythonic *peθ (“portion, segment, piece”); if so, it would be a doublet of piece.

Probably from Middle Dutch pete (“godmother or godfather”) (modern Dutch peet (“godparent, old woman, grandmother; godchild”)), related to dialectal German Pfette, Pfetter (“godfather; godchild”)), German Pate (“godfather, sponsor”), Patin (“godmother”). Or alternatively, related to pet (“a favourite”).

From a Middle English pet-form of Peter.

Words formed from peat

Phrases with peat

Words that rhyme with peat

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about peat

What does peat mean?
Peat means soil formed of dead but not fully decayed plants found in bog areas, often burned as fuel.
What is peat in Tamil?
Peat in Tamil is குழைச்சேறு, தொளி, முற்றாநிலக்கரி. See Peat meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is peat?
Peat can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce peat?
Peat is pronounced /piːt/ (UK).
What is the plural of peat?
The plural of peat is peats.

Words near peat in the dictionary

  1. peastone
  2. peastones
  3. peasweep
  4. peasweeps
  5. peasy
  6. peat
  7. peat bog
  8. peat bogs
  9. peat moss
  10. peat mosses
  11. peat pot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: peat (page history and authors); Peat (page history and authors); peat (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); peat (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); peat (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-peat.ogg.

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