peck

present singular third person pecks · participle present pecking · participle past pecked · past pecked

1. ambitransitiveTo strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird).

   The birds pecked at their food.

   2 more examples

   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; republished London: The Hogarth Press, 1960, →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

2. transitiveTo form by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument.

   to peck a hole in a tree

3. To strike, pick, thrust against, or dig into, with a pointed instrument, especially with repeated quick movements.
4. To seize and pick up with the beak, or as if with the beak; to bite; to eat; often with up.

   This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons peas.

   c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]

   2 more examples

   1713 September 14, letter to Joseph Addison, The Guardian, issue 160. I HAVE laid a wager, with a friend of mine, about the pigeons that used to peck up the corn which belonged to the ants.

   Occasionally a little band of exploring children with the fictitious optimism of youth pecked among its rank and tangled growth in the affectation of hoping to find blackberries there; […]

   1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC

5. To do something in small, intermittent pieces.

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

6. To type by searching for each key individually.
7. rareTo type in general.
8. To kiss briefly.

   At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.

   1997 June 26, J. K. Rowling [pseudonym; Joanne Rowling], chapter 1, in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter; 1), London: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN

plural pecks

1. An act of striking with a beak.
2. A small kiss.

plural pecks

1. One quarter of a bushel; a dry measure of eight quarts; equal to approximately 9092 cubic centimeters in the imperial system or 8810 cubic centimeters in the U.S. system.

   Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

   2 more examples

   22,110 bushels of French beans, at 6d. per peck, or 2s. per bushel

   1851, Henry Mayhew, “Gross Value of the Fruit and Vegetables Sold Annually in the London Streets”, in London Labour and the London Poor

   I took his advice, and went to Billingsgate for the first time in my life, and bought a peck of oysters for 2s. 6d.

   1851, Henry Mayhew, “Of the Experience of a Fried Fish-seller, and of the Class of Customers”, in London Labour and the London Poor

2. Similar units in other systems of measure, such as the Roman modius or Chinese dou.
3. A great deal; a large or excessive quantity.

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

   1 more example

   a peck of uncertainties and doubts

   1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC

present singular third person pecks · participle present pecking · participle past pecked · past pecked

1. regionalTo throw.

   Synonyms: fling, hurl, bung, cast, chuck, chunk, cook, dash

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

   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

1. uncountableDiscoloration caused by fungus growth or insects.

   an occurrence of peck in rice

1. UKobsoleteslanguncountableFood.

   Gemmen, have you ordered the peck and booze for the evening?

   1821, W. T. Moncrieff, Tom and Jerry

1. misspellingMisspelling of pec.

1. A surname.
2. A place in the United States:
   1. A city in Idaho.
   2. An unincorporated community in Sedgwick County and Sumner County, Kansas.
   3. A village in Michigan.
   4. A town in Wisconsin.