PEEP • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Peep

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/pip/ Listen

noun

Peep n.

1.

The cry of a young chicken; a chirp.

2.

First outlook or appearance. "Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn."

3.

A sly look; a look as through a crevice, or from a place of concealment. "To take t' other peep at the stars."

4.

(Zool.)

(a)

Any small sandpiper, as the least sandpiper (Trigna minutilla).

(b)

The European meadow pipit (Anthus pratensis).

Peep show, a small show, or object exhibited, which is viewed through an orifice or a magnifying glass.

Peep-o'-day boys, the Irish insurgents of 1784; so called from their visiting the house of the loyal Irish at day break in search of arms. (Cant)

verb

Peep v. i. (past & past part. peeped; pres. part. peeping)

1.

To cry, as a chicken hatching or newly hatched; to chirp; to cheep. "There was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped."

2.

To begin to appear; to look forth from concealment; to make the first appearance; as, the sun peeped over the eastern hills. "When flowers first peeped, and trees did blossoms bear."

3.

To look cautiously or slyly; to peer, as through a crevice; to pry. "Peep through the blanket of the dark." "From her cabined loophole peep."

Peep sight, an adjustable piece, pierced with a small hole to peep through in aiming, attached to a rifle or other firearm near the breech.

See images of 'Peep'

Etymology of 'Peep'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Peep" Quotes from Famous Books

... alone in the house one afternoon sitting by my window, toying with the key of my safe, and wondering whether I dare treat myself to a peep at my treasures, when a suspicious movement in the park below caught my attention. A black figure certainly dodged from behind one tree to the next, and then into the shadow of the park paling instead ...

— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various

... pretend to believe—either to himself or the wretched boy—that there was anything that could make the latter worse? Wasn't some such pretence on the other hand involved in the assumption of possible processes that would make him better? His greatest uneasiness seemed to peep at him out of the imminent impression that almost any acceptance of Paris might give one's authority away. It hung before him this morning, the vast bright Babylon, like some huge iridescent object, a jewel brilliant and hard, in which parts were not to be discriminated ...

— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... saw a fellow play bo-peep in a back-room, and presently was a noise, he was gone and fled; his son they said it was. Sir T. Aleyn pressed very hard to Mr. Turner, and desired to know whose money that was. Says Turner, By the eternal God, it is my own money, with many other protestations of his innocence. A constable ...

— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various

... window curtain to take a peep at the surroundings of her new home. Lawn, shrubbery, flower garden, while larger than those at Crag Cottage, were quite as well kept; neatness and order, beauty and fragrance made them so attractive that Evelyn was tempted to a stroll while waiting ...

— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley

... was known to his fellow-men? At best the necromancer might succeed in drawing from him some obscure utterance concerning your future, far more likely to destroy your courage than enable you to face what was before you; so that you would depart from your peep into the unknown, merely less able to encounter the duties ...

— Donal Grant • George MacDonald

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