peek

• enPR: pēk, IPA^(key): /piːk/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (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. Perhaps also possibly a metathetic alteration of Middle English kepen, kipen, kypen (“to keep, look, observe, watch”).

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

1. (intransitive)
   1. To look slyly, or with the eyes half closed, or through a crevice; to peep.

      Close your eyes, and no peeking!

   2. 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. (video games, especially first-person shooters) To briefly move out of cover (to gather visual information).

      Sniper watching the site; don't peek.

2. (transitive)
   1. To take a look at; to check out.

      Peek my new shoes.

   2. (computing, 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.

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