Definitions

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

  • noun Partially decomposed vegetable matter, usually mosses, found in bogs and used as fertilizer and fuel.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Partly decomposed vegetable matter, produced under various conditions of climate and topography, and of considerable importance in certain regions as fuel.
  • noun A small block of peat-bog or -moss, resembling an ordinary brick in shape, cut and dried for fuel.
  • An obsolete variant of pet.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete A small person; a pet; -- sometimes used contemptuously.
  • noun 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.
  • noun a bog containing peat; also, peat as it occurs in such places; peat moss.
  • noun (Bot.) Moss of the genus Sphagnum, which often grows abundantly in boggy or peaty places.
  • noun [Scot.] the reek or smoke of peat; hence, also, the peculiar flavor given to whisky by being distilled with peat as fuel.

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

  • noun partially carbonized vegetable matter saturated with water; can be used as a fuel when dried

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English pete, perhaps from Medieval Latin peta.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Origin unknown; perhaps a borrowing from an unattested Pictish or Brythonic source.

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