noun
- The skin or rind of certain fruits and vegetables.
- A chemical peel.
verb
peeled, peel·ing, peels verb
transitive- To strip or cut away the skin, rind, or bark from; pare.
- To strip away; pull off: peeled the label from the jar.
verb
intransitive- To lose or shed skin, bark, or other covering.
- To come off in thin strips or pieces, as bark, skin, or paint: Her sunburned skin began to peel.
Phrasal Verbs: peel off To remove (an article of clothing that fits snugly).To break away from a group in motion, especially to leave flight formation in order to land an aircraft or make a dive.To leave or depart, especially in a hurry.
peel out To leave quickly, especially by accelerating a vehicle so that the tires spin:
peeled out of the driveway. Origin of peel
From Middle English
pilen, pelen to peel from Old French
peler, Old English
pilian (
both from Latin
pilāre to deprive of hair ) (
from pilus hair )
and from Old French
pillier to tug, pull, plunder (
from Latin
pilleum felt cap )
noun
A fortified house or tower of a kind constructed in the borderland of Scotland and England in the 1500s.
Origin of peel
Middle English
pel stake, small castle from Anglo-Norman
stockade variant of Old French
stake from Latin
pālus ; see
pag- in Indo-European roots.
Verb (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)
- To remove the skin or outer covering of.
- I sat by my sister's bed, peeling oranges for her.
- To remove from the outer or top layer of.
- I peeled (the skin from) an orange and ate it hungrily.
- We peeled the old wallpaper off in strips where it was hanging loose.
- (intransitive) To become detached, come away, especially in flakes or strips; to shed skin in such a way.
- I had been out in the sun too long, and my nose was starting to peel.
- (intransitive) To remove one's clothing.
- The children peeled by the side of the lake and jumped in.
- (intransitive) To move, separate (off or away)
- The scrum-half peeled off and made for the touchlines.
Noun (countable and uncountable, plural peels)
- The skin or outer layer of a fruit, vegetable etc. (usually uncountable)
- (rugby) The action of peeling away from a formation.
- A cosmetic preparation designed to remove dead skin or exfoliate.
Origin Old French pel (“skin") (Modern French peau), from Latin pellis (“skin").
Noun (plural peels)
- (archaic) A small tower, fort, or castle; a keep.
Origin Anglo-Norman and Old French pel (compare modern French pieu), from Latin palus (“stake").
Noun (plural peels)
- A shovel or similar instrument, now especially a pole with a flat disc at the end used for removing loaves of bread from a baker's oven.
- A T-shaped implement used by printers and bookbinders for hanging wet sheets of paper on lines or poles to dry.
- (archaic, US) The blade of an oar.
Origin From Old French pele (compare modern pelle), from Latin pala, from the base of plangere (“fix, plant").
Noun (plural peels)
- (Scotland and curling) An equal or match; a draw.
- (curling) A takeout which removes a stone from play as well as the delivered stone.
Verb (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)
- (croquet) To send through a hoop (of a ball other than one's own).
Origin Named from Walter H. Peel, a noted 19th-century croquet player.
Verb (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)
- Common misspelling of peal: to sound loudly.
Origin Misspelling of peal.
Verb (third-person singular simple present peels, present participle peeling, simple past and past participle peeled)
- (archaic) To plunder; to pillage, rob.
Origin Old French piller (“pillage").
See also: peal
