Definitions

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

  • intransitive verb To glance quickly.
  • intransitive verb To look or peer furtively, as from a place of concealment.
  • intransitive verb To be only partially visible, as if peering or emerging from hiding.
  • noun A brief or furtive look.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To peep; look pryingly.
  • noun A woodpecker.
  • noun An obsolete or nautical spelling of peak.

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

  • intransitive verb colloq. To look surreptitiously, or with the eyes half closed, or through a crevice; to peep.

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

  • verb To look slyly, or with the eyes half closed, or through a crevice; to peep.
  • verb To be only slightly, partially visible, as if peering out from a hiding place.
  • verb computing, transitive To retrieve (a value) from a memory address.

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

  • verb throw a glance at; take a brief look at
  • noun a secret look

Etymologies

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

[Middle English piken, perhaps alteration of Middle Dutch kieken, variant of kīken.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English *peken, piken ("to peep"), probably a fusion of peep and keek.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word peek.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Keep in reverse.

    July 22, 2007