Chapter Peastone to Peculiarity of P by Webster's Dictionary (1913 Edition)

Peastone to Peculiarity

Peastone
(Pea"stone`) n. (Min.) Pisolite.

Peasweep
(Peas"weep`) n. [So called from its note.] [Prov. Eng.] (Zoöl.) (a) The pewit, or lapwing. (b) The greenfinch.

Peat
(Peat) n. [Cf. Pet a fondling.] A small person; a pet; — sometimes used contemptuously. [Obs.] Shak.

Peat
(Peat), n. [Prob. for beat, prop., material used to make the fire burn better, fr. AS. btan to better, mend bt advantage. See Better, Boot advantage.] A substance of vegetable origin, consisting of roots and fibers, moss, etc., in various stages of decomposition, and found, as a kind of turf or bog, usually in low situations, where it is always more or less saturated with water. It is often dried and used for fuel.

Peat bog, a bog containing peat; also, peat as it occurs in such places; peat moss. — Peat moss. (a) The plants which, when decomposed, become peat. (b) A fen producing peat. (c) (Bot.) Moss of the genus Sphagnum, which often grows abundantly in boggy or peaty places. — Peat reek, the reek or smoke of peat; hence, also, the peculiar flavor given to whisky by being distilled with peat as fuel. [Scot.]

Peaty
(Peat"y) a. Composed of peat; abounding in peat; resembling peat.

Peba
(Pe"ba) n. [Cf. Pg. peba.] (Zoöl.) An armadillo (Tatusia novemcincta) which is found from Texas to Paraguay; — called also tatouhou.

Pebble
(Peb"ble) n. [AS. papolstan; cf. L. papula pimple, mote. See Stone.]

1. A small roundish stone or bowlder; especially, a stone worn and rounded by the action of water; a pebblestone. "The pebbles on the hungry beach." Shak.

As children gathering pebbles on the shore.

Milton.

2. Transparent and colorless rock crystal; as, Brazilian pebble; — so called by opticians.

Pebble powder, slow-burning gunpowder, in large cubical grains. — Scotch pebble, varieties of quartz, as agate, chalcedony, etc., obtained from cavities in amygdaloid.

Pebble
(Peb"ble), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Pebbled; p. pr. & vb. n. Pebbling.] To grain (leather) so as to produce a surface covered with small rounded prominences.

Pebbled
(Peb"bled) a. Abounding in pebbles. Thomson.

Pebblestone
(Peb"ble*stone`) A pebble; also, pebbles collectively. "Chains of pebblestone." Marlowe.

Pebbly
(Peb"bly) a. Full of pebbles; pebbled. "A hard, pebbly bottom." Johnson.

Pebrine
(||Pe`brine") n. [F.] An epidemic disease of the silkworm, characterized by the presence of minute vibratory corpuscles in the blood.

Pecan
(Pe*can") n. [Cf. F. pacane the nut.] (Bot.) A species of hickory (Carya olivæformis), growing in North America, chiefly in the Mississippi valley and in Texas, where it is one of the largest of forest trees; also, its fruit, a smooth, oblong nut, an inch or an inch and a half long, with a thin shell and well- flavored meat. [Written also pacane.]

Pecary
(Pec"a*ry) n. (Zoöl.) See Peccary.