How to use peck in a sentence

37 example sentences · verb, noun

Peck means to strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird). Example: “The birds pecked at their food.”

Examples of peck by meaning

verbTo 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...
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

verbTo form by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument.

to peck a hole in a tree

verbTo do something in small, intermittent pieces.

He has been pecking away at that project for some time now.

verbTo kiss briefly.

Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs.1997 June 26, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter 1, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter; 1), London...

nounOne quarter of a bushel; a dry measure of eight quarts; equal to approximately 9092 cubic centimeters in the imperial...

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

nounA great deal; a large or excessive quantity.

She figured most children probably ate a peck of dirt before they turned ten.

verbTo lurch forward; especially, of a horse, to stumble after hitting the ground with the toe instead of the flat of the...

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

nounDiscoloration caused by fungus growth or insects.

an occurrence of peck in rice

More sentences with peck

The pigeons were happily pecking at crumbs of bread on the ground.From the entry crumb
A foot kiss leaves no shred of doubt about the pecking order.From the entry foot kiss
"Morning, ducky!" said Roderick, as he gave his partner a quick peck on the cheek and sat down to breakfast.From the entry ducky
A rasp of guinea fowl honked as 'Emma' the ostrich pecked.2025, Rory MacLean, Nick Danziger, Back in the USSR. From the entry rasp
You insert 25 cents and the chicken would peck at an X.2011 November 23, Tommy Marks Donily, Gangster Ways, page 33. From the entry X's and O's
Peck," Mama called out, in her sing-songy way, like she always did.2008, C C Payne, Something to Sing About. From the entry sing-songy
Were there still wild ravens flying about England looking for corpses to peck at?2006, Hugh Cook, The Succubus and Other Stories, page 579. From the entry ravenless
It's a dead goose that breaks things and chases people and pecks them where it hurts.1999, Michael Lawrence, The Poltergoose, →ISBN, page 63. From the entry poltergoose
Muslim women do not "hen peck" or question their husband's late arrival home, activities, or whereabouts.1982, Robert E. Dunton, Out where the day begins, page 89. From the entry hen peck
His left jab pecked at McTigue's face, and at infighting he matched the champion on even terms.1955 March 28, Charles Lesemann, “Ruckus in Georgia”, in Sports Illustrated. From the entry infighting
Manchester, the biggest of the lot, makes a specialty of pecking at my shoelaces.1938 September 17, “From the Editor’s Easy Chair”, in Welford Beaton, editor, Hollywood Spectator, thirteenth year, volume 13, number 17…. From the entry duckess
Even the common scold heartily despises the husband she can “hen peck.”1919, Minnie Bronson, The Woman Patriot - Issues 3-4, page 8. From the entry hen peck
"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…. From the entry peck at
You pecked me in my crotchal region!”2021 April 4, Rich Blomquist & Erin Wagoner, “Easter's 11” (19:24 from the start), in Bless the Harts, season 2, episode 16, spoken by…. From the entry crotchal
I don't think an entire mustering of storks would have been able to peck away at her hostility.2017, Karen Duffy, Backbone, Arcade Publishing, page 55. From the entry mustering
The pecking order and the power struggles and the personalities.2014, Helen Giltrow, The Distance: A Thriller, Anchor, →ISBN. From the entry wire
And that could mean there could one day be something even more dinolike pecking away in my friend’s backyard.2014 December 16, Sarah Zielinski, “The dinosaurs in the backyard”, in Science News. From the entry dinolike
Today we will peck and gobble big fat worms.”2013, Janice N. Harrington, Busy-Busy Little Chick, →ISBN. From the entry pruck
Work on other species, too, indicates that when it comes to pecking orders, the peckees are more stressed than the peckers.2003 October 18, “Stress Test”, in The Economist. From the entry pecker
Children learned early not to throw watermelon rinds where the chickens could peck them: pecking watermelon rinds gave chickens sorehead.1977, Kathryn Tucker Windham, Southern Cooking to Remember, page 106. From the entry sorehead
For instance, you would find it impossible to get one-fourth of a bushel of parsnips into a peck measure.1916, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Coinage, Weights, and Measures, Establishment of Standard Weights for Various…. From the entry bushel measure
As a fellow Astarionmancer I don't mind a little peck before finishing his personal quest, but after that he should be more passionate.2023 November 2, ajsemprini, Reddit. From the entry Astarionmancer
As it is, each rooster needed to be tethered to his own hut to keep them from pecking each other's eyes out.2004 Fall, Kit Coyne Irwin, “Blind Spot”, in The Kenyon Review, volume 26, number 4, page 108. From the entry as it is
Four stories up, young game creators in T-shirts peck away at Silicon Graphics Inc. workstations, putting semihuman figures through movements that defy gravity and logic.1994 February 21, “SEGA!”, in BusinessWeek. From the entry semihuman
But as I pecked at pommes frites on a warm London evening, it was hard to see how that successful arrangement of NFP could happen again.2026 July 26, Coco Khan, “Am I a chicken-shop lefty? Here’s what a French fast food row taught me about politics”, in The Guardian, →ISSN. From the entry pomme frite
He beat about and pecked the net until his mate was liberated, and, throating a song of gratitude, the bird he freed flew to the sky.1911, Paul Wilstach, Thais, "the Story of a Sinner who Became a Saint and a Saint who Sinned": A Play in Four Acts, page 17. From the entry throat
After gulping hard, I said aloud, “Zoinks.” I was expecting a big black crow to peck out my eyes, or a woman to hang herself out the second story window.2012, Michael W. Messer, Forever Sixteen, page 39. From the entry zoinks

Meaning of peck

verb To strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird).
verb To form by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument.
verb To strike, pick, thrust against, or dig into, with a pointed instrument, especially with repeated quick movements.

Full definition of peck

Questions about peck in a sentence

How do you use peck in a sentence?: Peck is used as a verb and noun. For example: “The birds pecked at their food.”
What is a short sentence with peck?: “The birds pecked at their food.”
What does peck mean?: Peck means to strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird).

Adapted from Wiktionary: peck (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use peck in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/peck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.