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peel¹

(pēl)

1. The skin or rind of certain fruits and vegetables.

2. A chemical peel.

v. peeled, peel·ing, peels

v.tr.

1. To strip or cut away the skin, rind, or bark from; pare.

2. To strip away; pull off: peeled the label from the jar.

v.intr.

1. To lose or shed skin, bark, or other covering.

2. To come off in thin strips or pieces, as bark, skin, or paint: Her sunburned skin began to peel.

Phrasal Verbs:

peel off

1. To remove (an article of clothing that fits snugly).

2. To break away from a group in motion, especially to leave flight formation in order to land an aircraft or make a dive.

3. 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.

[From Middle English pilen, pelen, to peel, from Old French peler, and 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).]

peel²

(pēl)

1. A long-handled, shovellike tool used by bakers to move bread or pastries into and out of an oven.

2. Printing A T-shaped pole used for hanging up freshly printed sheets of paper to dry.

[Middle English, from Old French pele, from Latin pāla, spade, peel; see pag- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]

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peel2

peel³

(pēl)

A fortified house or tower of a kind constructed in the borderland of Scotland and England in the 1500s.

[Middle English pel, stake, small castle, from Anglo-Norman, stockade, variant of Old French, stake, from Latin pālus; see pag- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]

Peel

(pēl), Sir Robert 1788-1850.

British politician. As home secretary in the 1820s, he established the London police force (1829). He later served as prime minister (1834-1835 and 1841-1846) and was instrumental in repealing the restrictive Corn Laws.

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

Indo-European Roots

Semitic Roots

The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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