peeper

Noun

peeper (plural peepers)

1. (colloquial, in plural) The eye.
   • Check out the gorgeous peepers on that guy!
   • Jeepers creepers, where'd ya get them peepers?
     Jeepers creepers, where'd ya get those eyes?1938, Louis Armstrong (and lyrics by Johnny Mercer), Jeepers Creepers
2. Someone who peeps; a spy.
   • Who's there? peepers, intelligencers, eavesdroppers?1604 (first performance), Tho[mas] Dekker; Iohn Webster [i.e., John Webster], West-ward Hoe. […], London: […] [William Jaggard], and to be sold by Iohn Hodgets […], published 1607, →OCLC, (please...
   • If listeners seldom hear good of themselves, it is also true that peepers sometimes see more than they like; and Betty, the cook, as she reached the landing, glancing askance with ominous curiosity, beheld a spectacle, the sight of which nearly bereft her of her senses.1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard
3. (dated, derogatory, slang) A private detective.
   • So you go to see this peeper, this Marlowe. That was your mistake.1944, William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman, The Big Sleep (screenplay)
4. A peeping tom.
5. An animal, such as some frogs, having a shrill, high-pitched call.
6. (colloquial) A chicken just breaking the shell; a young bird.