peel

Meanings

Verb

• To remove the skin or outer covering of.
• To remove something from the outer or top layer of.
• To become detached, come away, especially in flakes or strips; to shed skin in such a way.
• To remove one's clothing.
• To move, separate (off or away).
• To play a peel shot.
• To send through a hoop (of a ball other than one's own).
• To plunder; to pillage, rob.
• Misspelling of peal: to sound loudly.

Noun

• The skin or outer layer of a fruit, vegetable, etc.
• The action of peeling away from a formation.
• A cosmetic preparation designed to remove dead skin or to exfoliate.
• A spatula-like device to remove bread or pizza from an oven.
• A stake.
• A fence made of stakes; a stockade.
• A small tower, fort, or castle; a keep.
• A shovel or similar instrument, now especially a pole with a flat disc at the end used for removing pizza or 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.
• The blade of an oar.
• An equal or match; a draw.
• A takeout which removes a stone from play as well as the delivered stone.
• Alternative of peal

Related

Similar words

• skin, strip
• disrobe, strip
• rind, zest

Origin

• From Middle English pelen itself from Old English pilian and Old French peler, pellier, both from Latin pilo ("to remove hair from, depilate"), from pilus. pill.
• From Middle English peel, pele, from Anglo-Norman pel (compare modern French pieu), from Latin pālus. pole, and pale#Etymology 2.
• From Old French pele (modern French pelle), from Latin pāla, from the base of plangere. pala.
• Origin unknown.
• Named from Walter H. Peel, a noted 19th-century croquet player.
• Old French piller ("pillage").