peter

Meanings

Noun

• The penis.
• A safe.
• A prison cell.

Verb

• To dwindle; to trail off; to diminish to nothing.
• Synonym of blue peter

Origin

• US, 1902, presumably from shared initial pe-. Compare the use of other men’s names as a slang term for the penis, e.g., dick, willy, John Thomas, etc.
• 1812, US miners’ slang, Unknown. One suggestion is that it comes from peter being an abbreviation of saltpeter, the key ingredient in gunpowder – when a mine was exhausted, it was “petered”. Other derivations are from St. Peter (from sense of “rock”), or French péter.