peat

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Partially carbonized vegetable matter, usually mosses, found in bogs and used as fertilizer and fuel.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Partly decomposed vegetable matter, produced under various conditions of climate and topography, and of considerable importance in certain regions as fuel. Peat occurs in many countries and in different latitudes, but always either in swampy localities or in damp and foggy regions. It is formed of vegetable matter undergoing decay, and in some respects it is the modern representative of the coal of the earlier geological epochs, and its formation illustrates the conditions under which coal has originated. Peat is abundant in northern Europe, and particularly so in Ireland, where it is perhaps of greater importance as fuel than in any other country. It occurs in India, especially in the Neilgherry hills and in Bengal; also in various parts of the United States, and there are in the latter country regions (especially in New England) where it is occasionally used as fuel. The vegetation of which peat is made up in the various countries where it occurs is quite different, and occasionally the number of species which have taken part in its formation is large. The genus sphagnum is an important element in much of the European peat. The peat of Bengal, on the other hand, is said to be formed almost exclusively from one plant, the wild rice, Oryza sylvestris. The peat of New England is made up of a considerable variety of aquatic plants. Peat is very spongy, and contains a large amount of water near the surface; the deeper down it is taken, the more compact it is. A great variety of processes for compressing and hot-drying it have been invented and put in use in different parts of the world.
2. n. A small block of peat-bog or -moss, resembling an ordinary brick in shape, cut and dried for fuel.
3. An obsolete variant of pet.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A small person; a pet; -- sometimes used contemptuously.
2. n. A substance of vegetable origin, consisting of roots and fibers, moss, etc., in various stages of decomposition, and found, as a kind of turf or bog, usually in low situations, where it is always more or less saturated with water. It is often dried and used for fuel.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. partially carbonized vegetable matter saturated with water; can be used as a fuel when dried