pepper
nounverbcommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//ˈpɛp.ə//
- United Kingdom/[ˈpʰɛp.ə]/
- Canada//ˈpɛp.ɚ//
- Canada/[ˈpʰɛp.ɚ]/
- Canada/[ˈpʰɛp.ɹ̩]/
A plant of the family Piperaceae.
noun
- 1
A plant of the family Piperaceae.
- 2
A spice prepared from the fermented, dried, unripe berries of this plant.
- 3
A fruit of the capsicum plant: red, green, yellow or white, hollow and containing seeds, and in a wide range of mild (sweet, nonspicy) to hot (spicy) varieties.
- 4
A game used by baseball players to warm up where fielders standing close to a batter rapidly return the batted ball to be hit again
Some ballparks have signs saying "No pepper games".
- 5
A randomly-generated value that is added to another value (such as a password) prior to hashing. Unlike a salt, a new one is generated for each value and it is held separately from the value.
- 6
slangA beating; a thrashing.
He means to snatch the laurels from his brow, / At all his boasted pluck and prowess smile, / And give him pepper in superior style.
[T]he Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and finished.
- 7
slangA shotgun.
Chew beef like breakfast (Yum) Two shanks, get 'round in seconds (Two) Be feeding my area, peppers
Number plates already hot, and plus we've got like three peppers
Etymology
From Middle English peper, piper, from Old English piper, from Proto-West Germanic *pipar, from Latin piper, from an Indo-Aryan source; compare Sanskrit पिप्पलि (pippali, “long pepper”). The name was given to the capsicum fruit because of its unusual spicy taste, not unlike the Old World spice. Cognate with Scots pepar, Saterland Frisian Pieper, West Frisian piper, Dutch peper, German Low German Peper, German Pfeffer, Danish peber, Norwegian Bokmål pepper, Norwegian Nynorsk pepar, Swedish peppar, Icelandic pipar. Doublet of falafel and peepul.
verb
- 1
To add pepper to.
- 2
To strike with something made up of small particles.
- 3
To cover with lots of (something made up of small things).
After the hailstorm, the beach was peppered with holes.
- 4
To add (something) at frequent intervals.
He liked to pepper long words throughout his conversation.
- 5
slangTo beat or thrash.
I am pepperd for this world, I am sped yfaith, he hath made wormes meate of me
- 6
To use a pepper (type of value used prior to hashing).
- 7
slangTo shoot (upon) with the dotty.
- 8
slangTo write accents or disambiguating marks in script.
Forms
- plural
- peppers
- past tense
- peppered
- past participle
- peppered
- present participle
- peppering
- third person singular
- peppers