Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A pungent spice prepared from the pepper plant Piper nigrum, whose small unripe fruit are fermented, dried, and used whole or ground.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The plant Piper nigrum.
  • noun The seeds (peppercorns) of the plant Piper nigrum which are commonly used as a spice and seasoning. They are either used whole, or in a ground or crushed form. (White pepper is made from black peppercorns which have had their dark skins removed.)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun pepper that is ground from whole peppercorns with husks on
  • noun climber having dark red berries (peppercorns) when fully ripe; southern India and Sri Lanka; naturalized in northern Burma and Assam

Etymologies

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  • Many historical notes/usage notes can be found on pepper.

    October 9, 2017