peck
/pɛk/
peck verb: to strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird). Also the misspelling of pec.
Verb (1)
peck (third-person singular simple present pecks, present participle pecking, simple past and past participle pecked)
- To strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird).
- The birds pecked at their food.
- 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.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
- 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.
- This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons peas.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[ward]...
- 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.1713 September 14, letter to Joseph Addison, The Guardian, issue 160.
- 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.
- To type in general.
- 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.1997 June 26, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter 1, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter; 1), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN
Noun (1)
peck (plural pecks)
- An act of striking with a beak.
- A small kiss.
Noun (2)
peck (plural pecks)
- 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.
- 22,110 bushels of French beans, at 6d. per peck, or 2s. per bushel1851, Henry Mayhew, “Gross Value of the Fruit and Vegetables Sold Annually in the London Streets”, in London Labour and the London Poor
- Similar units in other systems of measure, such as the Roman modius or Chinese dou.
- A great deal; a large or excessive quantity.
- She figured most children probably ate a peck of dirt before they turned ten.
- a peck of uncertainties and doubts1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC
Verb (2)
peck (third-person singular simple present pecks, present participle pecking, simple past and past participle pecked)
- 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.
- 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.1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin, published 2013, page 97
Noun (3)
peck (uncountable)
Noun (4)
peck (uncountable)
- Food.
- Gemmen, have you ordered the peck and booze for the evening?1821, W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry
Proper noun capitalized: Peck
Peck
- A surname.
- A city in Idaho.
- An unincorporated community in Sedgwick County and Sumner County, Kansas.
- A village in Michigan.
- A town in Wisconsin.
Also used as
peck is also the misspelling of pec.
peck meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Tagalog and Arabic
peck in Hindi
- to strike or pierce with the beak or similar
- चोंच मारना cõc mārnā
peck in Urdu
- to strike or pierce with the beak or similar
- چونچ مارنا chonch maarna
peck in Tagalog
- to strike or pierce with the beak or similar
- tuka
peck in Arabic
- to strike or pierce with the beak or similar
- نَقَّرَ naqqara, نَقَرَ naqara
More languagesFewer languages
- peck in Malay
- cagut, catuk, pagut, patuk
- peck in Persian
- نوک زدن nok zadan
- peck in Thai
- จิก jìk
- peck in Vietnamese
- mổ
- peck in Myanmar
- ဆွပ် hcwap, ဆိတ် hcit
Examples of peck in a sentence
- And the Wicked Witch said to the King Crow, "Fly at once to the strangers; peck out their eyes and tear them to pieces."1900 May 17, L[yman] Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] M[elvin] Hill Co., →OCLC:
- Occasionally a little band of exploring children with the fictitious optimism of youth pecked among its rank and tangled growth in the affectation of hoping to find blackberries there; […]1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards...
- I took his advice, and went to Billingsgate for the first time in my life, and bought a peck of oysters for 2s. 6d.1851, Henry Mayhew, “Of the Experience of a Fried Fish-seller, and of the Class of Customers”, in London Labour and the London Poor:
Synonyms of peck
28 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of peck
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | pecks |
| present participle | pecking |
| past participle | pecked |
| past | pecked |
| Noun | |
| plural | pecks |
Origin of peck
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”).
Words formed from peck
Phrases with peck
Words that rhyme with peck
44 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about peck
- What does peck mean?
- Peck means to strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird).
- What is peck in Hindi?
- Peck in Hindi is चोंच मारना (cõc mārnā). See Peck meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use peck in a sentence?
- And the Wicked Witch said to the King Crow, "Fly at once to the strangers; peck out their eyes and tear them to pieces."
- What part of speech is peck?
- Peck can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce peck?
- Peck is pronounced /pɛk/.
- What is the past tense of peck?
- The past tense of peck is pecked.
Words near peck in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: peck (page history and authors); Peck (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-peck.wav.
Cite this entry: “peck.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/peck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.