Word.ws English Dictionary

pecking at

pecking at is the present participle and gerund of peck at.

Meaning of peck at

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To nag
    • "Ghouls and harpies!" Brissenden snapped out with clicking teeth. "Yes, I know the spawn—complacently pecking at him for his Father Damien letter, analyzing him, weighing him—"1908 September – 1909 September, Jack London, chapter 32, in Martin Eden, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, published September 1909, →OCLC
  2. (transitive) To eat unenthusiastically and in small bites.
    Synonyms:
    pick at

Questions about pecking at

What is pecking at the present participle and gerund of?
Pecking at is the present participle and gerund of peck at.

Words near pecking at in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pecking at (page history and authors); peck at (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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