peer
/pɪɹ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.14 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Somebody who is, or something that is, at a level or of a value equal (to that of something else).
noun
Someone who is approximately the same age (as someone else).
Example Sentences
- "[…] I should be still / Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind, / Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;"
- "As if thro’ a dungeon grate he peer’d With broad and burning face."
- "He walked slowly past the gate and peered through a narrow gap in the cedar hedge. The girl was moving along a sanded walk, toward a gray, unpainted house, with a steep roof, broken by dormer windows."
- "He would peek into the curtained windows, or, climbing upon the roof, peer down the black depths of the chimney in vain endeavor to solve the unknown wonders that lay within those strong walls."
- "Long before you see the lean, handsome heads peering mildly over the half-doors of the loose boxes, you know that East Ilsley's business is training racehorses."
- "And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, / So honour peereth in the meanest habit."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-West Germanic *pūrijan Old English *pȳran Middle English peren English peer From Middle English peren, pyren, piren (“to peer, gaze”), perhaps from Old English *pȳran (“to look, peer”), from Proto-West Germanic *pūrijan (“to look”), related to Saterland Frisian pierje (“to look”), Dutch Low Saxon piren (“to look”), West Flemish pieren (“to look with narrowed eyes, squint at”), Dutch pieren (“to look closely at, examine”), Middle English pouren (“to gaze, look closely”), English pore (“to study meticulously”). Compare also West Frisian pluere (“to peer”), Dutch pluren (“to gaze squintingly”), German Low German plieren (“to blink”), Danish plire (“to peer”), Swedish plira, blira (“to peer”), and thence ultimately related to the root of English blear. The sense meaning "to be visible" is perhaps from a shortening of appear.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /pɪɹ/
- British English: /pɪə/
Usage
Inflected Forms
peers (present, singular)
peering (participle, present)
peered (participle, past)
peered (past)
pire (alternative, dialectal)
pyre (alternative, dialectal)
peers (plural)