peer
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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
peer¹
- /pɪə/ UK
- /pɪː/ British, Southern, Standard
- /pɪjə/ British, Southern, Standard
- /pɪɹ/ US
- /niə̯/ New Zealand
- /piɾ/ Scotland
- /pɛː/
Sounds like pier, pair, pare, pear (all cheer–chair merger) · Rhymes with -ɪə(ɹ)
Where it comes from
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.
verb peers · peering · peered · pire · pyre
- To look with difficulty, or as if searching for something. […] I should be still / Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind, / Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads;
- To come in sight; to appear. And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds, / So honour peereth in the meanest habit.
noun peers · pire · pyre
- A look; a glance. Blessed are those organisers who provide one-and-all with a name tag, for then the participants will chat together. A quick peer at your neighbour's lapel is much the simplest way to become introduced […]
peer²
- /pɪə̯/ UK
- /pɪɹ/ US
Sounds like pier · Rhymes with -ɪə(ɹ)
Where it comes from
From Middle English per, pere, from Anglo-Norman peir, Old French per, from Latin pār. Doublet of pair and par.
noun peers
- Somebody who is, or something that is, at a level or of a value equal (to that of something else). In song he never had his peer.
- Someone who is approximately the same age (as someone else).
- A noble with a title, i.e., a peerage, and in times past, with certain rights and privileges not enjoyed by commoners. a peer of the realm
- A comrade; a companion; an associate. He all his Peeres in beautie did surpas,
verb peers · peering · peered
- To make equal in rank. Being now Peered with the Lord Chancellor, and the Earl of Essex.
- To carry communications traffic terminating on one's own network on an equivalency basis to and from another network, usually without charge or payment. Contrast with transit where one pays another network provider to carry one's traffic.
peer³
- /piː.ə/ UK
- /pi.ɚ/ US
Where it comes from
pee + -er
noun peers
- Someone who pees, someone who urinates. As was the caveat about peeing in a pool. Of course, peeing in a pool wasn't dangerous to the person ... If you peed in a pool, and you were carrying the polio virus, presumably *other* people were put at risk, not the peer (pee-er?).
