peg

A cylindrical wooden or metal object used to fasten or as a bearing between objects.

Noun

  1. A cylindrical wooden or metal object used to fasten or as a bearing between objects.
  2. A protrusion used to hang things on.
    • Hang your coat on the peg and come in.
  3. A support; a reason; a pretext.
    • a peg to hang a claim upon
  4. A peg moved on a crib board to keep score.
  5. A fixed exchange rate, where a currency's value is matched to the value of another currency or measure such as gold.
    • The following became obvious quite quickly – the cryptosphere needed a nonvolatile peg. - 2022, Simon Dingle, Steven Boykey Sidley, chapter 7, in Beyond Bitcoin, Icon Books, →ISBN:
  6. A small quantity of a strong alcoholic beverage.
    • This over, the club will be visited for a "peg," Anglice drink. - 1898, unknown author, Harper's Magazine:
    • The name had come to mean any aromatic essence of herbs by the time the first thirsty colonial poured a peg of Who-shot-John into his mint water. - 1953, S. S. Field, The American drink book, page 65:

    Synonyms: shot

  7. A place formally allotted for fishing
  8. A leg or foot.
    • "Now I'm cleaned up for thee: tha's no 'casions ter stir a peg all day, but sit and read thy books." - 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 2, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:
  9. One of the pins of a musical instrument, on which the strings are strained.
    • O, you are well tuned now! / But I'll set down the pegs that make this music, / As honest as I am. - c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William...
    • Did we form ourselves, choosing, and our powers? I find myself, for one, as a stringed instrument with chords and stops - but I have no power to turn the pegs, or pitch my thoughts to a higher or lower key. - 1826,...
  10. A step; a degree.
    • to screw papal authority to the highest peg - a. 1678 (date written), Isaac Barrow, “(please specify the chapter name or sermon number)”, in The Works of Dr. Isaac Barrow. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII),...
    • We still have worsted all your holy tricks; / Trepann'd your party with intrigue, / And took your grandees down a peg[…] - 1662 (indicated as 1663), [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The...
  11. Ellipsis of clothes peg.
  12. A topic of interest, such as an ongoing event or an anniversary, around which various features can be developed.
    • […] all news media keep a supply of features on hand, waiting for a peg to make them topical. - 2004, Herbert J. Gans, Deciding What's News:
    • Journalists and prospective sources wishing to attract their attention are constantly on the lookout for pegs. The process by which a peg is identified is informed by news values. - 2010, Barbie Zelizer, Stuart Allan,...

Origin

From Middle English pegge, from Middle Dutch pegge (“pin, peg”), from Old Dutch *pigg-, *pegg-, from Proto-Germanic *pig-, *pag- (“peg, stake”), from Proto-Indo-European *bak-, *baḱ- (“club, pointed stick, peg”). Cognate with Dutch dialectal peg (“pin”), Low German pig, pigge (“peg, stick with a point”), Low German pegel (“post, stake”), Swedish pigg (“tooth, spike”), Danish pig (“spike”), Norwegian Bokmål pigg (“spike”), Irish bac (“stick, crook”), Latin baculum (“staff”), Latvian bakstît (“to poke”), Ancient Greek βάκτρον (báktron, “staff, walking stick”). Related to beak. This is one of the very few English words that begin with a p and come from Proto-Germanic. Proto-Germanic *p, when not in a consonant cluster beginning with *s, developed by Grimm's law from the Proto-Indo-European consonant *b, which was very rare. (To indicate or ascribe an attribute to): Assumed to originate...

Forms

pegs

Derived

between the pegs bring down a peg clothes peg clothespeg cobbler's pegs crawling peg footpeg gim-peg hatpeg knock down a peg move down a peg mumblety peg nose peg pail peg-a-lantern peg-and-socket joint pegboard pegbox peg boy peg dope peg element peg-fiched peg float peghead

Verb

  1. To fasten using a peg.
    • Let's peg the rug to the floor.
  2. To affix or pin.
    • I found a tack and pegged your picture to the bulletin board.
    • She lunged forward and pegged him to the wall.
  3. To fix a value or price.
    • China's currency is no longer pegged to the American dollar.
    • Wages absorbed 80% of the total revenue (which was inescapable), and they were rising at almost twice the rate of fares, which were pegged by law. - 2023 March 8, Howard Johnston, “Was Marples the real railway...
  4. To narrow the cuff openings of a pair of pants so that the legs take on a peg shape.
  5. To throw.

    Synonyms: fling hurl bung cast chuck chunk cook dash dump feck jerk heave hield hoy huck hurtle launch lob peck peg pick pitch precipitate project

  6. To throw a ball at (someone), to hit (someone) with a ball.
  7. To indicate or ascribe an attribute to.
    • He's been pegged as a suspect.
    • I pegged his weight at 165.
    • 1997 page 84 of Patriot Gambit by Don Pendletone Bolan pegged his weight somewhere around 150 pounds. If he was armed, the weapon wasn't showing. Still, the Executioner would take no chances.
  8. To move one's pegs to indicate points scored; to score with a peg.
    • She pegged twelve points.
  9. To reach or exceed the maximum value on (a scale or gauge).
    • We pegged the speedometer across the flats.
  10. To engage in anal sex by penetrating with a strap-on dildo.
    • When you're pegging him and he gets close to orgasm, you'll observe a number of physical signs […] - 2007, Violet Blue, The Adventurous Couple's Guide to Strap-On Sex, →ISBN, page 32:
  11. To keep working hard at something; to peg away.
    • For more than the period of his splendid service in India, which the country was not slow to acknowledge, the Volunteers had kept pegging at it, despite all the official obstacles thrown in the way […] - 1911, William...
  12. To drink alcohol frequently, especially brandy and soda; to tipple.

Forms

pegs pegging pegged

Related

wedge compare Latin cuneus cunny cunt compare Latin cunnus muggins

Derived

depeg level pegging mispeg peg down peggable pegged pants peggee pegger pegging peg it peg out peg the needle repeg unpeg