Word.ws English Dictionary

pecking

/ˈpɛkɪŋ/

pecking is the present participle and gerund of peck.

Noun

pecking (countable and uncountable, plural peckings)

  1. The act by which something is pecked.
    • the peckings of hungry chickens
  2. The ancient skill of shaping stone into tools, containers, or artworks.
  3. (obsolete) The game of throwing pebbles at birds.

Meaning of peck

Verb

peck (third-person singular simple present pecks, present participle pecking, simple past and past participle pecked)

  1. (ambitransitive) To strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird).
    • The birds pecked at their food.
  2. (transitive) To form by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument.
    • to peck a hole in a tree
  3. To strike, pick, thrust against, or dig into, with a pointed instrument, especially with repeated quick movements.
  4. 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]...
  5. To do something in small, intermittent pieces.
    • He has been pecking away at that project for some time now.
  6. To type by searching for each key individually.

See all 22 meanings of peck

Forms of pecking

pluralpeckings

Words formed from pecking

Phrases with pecking

Words that rhyme with pecking

Questions about pecking

What does pecking mean?
Pecking means the act by which something is pecked.
What is pecking the present participle and gerund of?
Pecking is the present participle and gerund of peck.
What part of speech is pecking?
Pecking is a noun.
How do you pronounce pecking?
Pecking is pronounced /ˈpɛkɪŋ/.
What is the plural of pecking?
The plural of pecking is peckings.

Words near pecking in the dictionary

  1. peckhorn
  2. peckhorns
  3. peckier
  4. peckiest
  5. peckiness
  6. pecking
  7. pecking at
  8. pecking order
  9. pecking orders
  10. peckingly
  11. peckings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pecking (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-pecking.wav.

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