peek

• enPR: pēk, IPA^(key): /piːk/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Homophones: peak, peke, pique
• Rhymes: -iːk

• peak, peke (obsolete)

From Middle English *peken, piken, pyken (“to peep”), probably a fusion of Middle English pepen (“to peep”) and keken, kiken (“to keek, look, spy”), equivalent to a blend of peep +‎ keek.

peek (third-person singular simple present peeks, present participle peeking, simple past and past participle peeked)

1. (informal) To look slyly, or with the eyes half closed, or through a crevice; to peep.
2. (informal) To be only slightly, partially visible, as if peering out from a hiding place.
   • 2012, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Going Down: Oral Sex Stories, →ISBN:

     A pale strip of white skin peeked out from under his waistband.

   • 2012, Michelle Monkou, If I Had You, →ISBN:

     Her brown skin peeked through the empty gap in her clothing.

3. (computing, transitive, dated) To retrieve (a value) from a memory address.

   Coordinate term: poke

   • 2006, Gary Willoughby, PureBasic: A Beginner's Guide to Computer Programming, page 279:

     We are peeking the value from the first index's memory location.

• peekable

peek (plural peeks)

1. A quick glance or look.

• peek wallet
• sneak peek

peek

1. Misspelling of pique.

• Ekpe, Keep, Peke, keep, kepe, peke

peek

1. ergative plural of pe

From Proto-Hlai *pʰaːk (“high”), from Pre-Hlai *paːk (Norquest, 2015).

• (Standard Hlai, Baoding) IPA^(key): /pʰeːk˥/

peek

1. high