pepper

English Online Dictionary. What means pepper‎? What does pepper mean?

English

Alternative forms

• piper (archaic)

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, Swedish peppar, Icelandic pipar. Doublet of falafel and peepul.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛpə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɛpɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɛpə(ɹ)

Noun

pepper (countable and uncountable, plural peppers)

1. A plant of the family Piperaceae.
2. (uncountable) A spice prepared from the fermented, dried, unripe berries of this plant.
3. (UK, US, Ireland and Canada) A fruit of the capsicum plant: red, green, yellow or white, hollow and containing seeds, and in very spicy and mild varieties.

1. (baseball) 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

2. (cryptography) 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.
3. (boxing, slang) A beating; a thrashing.
4. (MLE, slang) A shotgun.

Synonyms

• (fruit of the capsicum):
  • (spicy): chili, chili pepper, chilli, hot pepper
  • (mild) bell pepper, paprika, sweet pepper, capsicum

Derived terms

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: pepa
• → Hawaiian: pepa
• → Marshallese: pepa

Translations

Verb

pepper (third-person singular simple present peppers, present participle peppering, simple past and past participle peppered)

1. (transitive) To add pepper to.
2. (transitive) To strike with something made up of small particles.
3. (transitive) To cover with lots of (something made up of small things).

4. (transitive) To add (something) at frequent intervals.

5. (transitive, slang) To beat or thrash.
6. (transitive, MLE, slang) To shoot (upon) with the dotty.
7. (transitive, slang) To write accents or disambiguating marks in script.

Derived terms

• pepper up

Translations

See also

• salt
• Wikipedia article on pepper
• Wikipedia article on peppers (fruits of the capsicum plant)

Middle English

Noun

pepper

1. Alternative form of peper

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Old Norse piparr.

Pronunciation

Noun

pepper m (definite singular pepperen)

1. pepper (spice)

Derived terms

• pepperkake
• peppermynte

See also

• pepar (Nynorsk)

References

• “pepper” in The Bokmål Dictionary.