pepper

A plant of the family Piperaceae.

Noun

  1. A plant of the family Piperaceae.
  2. A spice prepared from the fermented, dried, unripe berries of this plant.
  3. A fruit of the capsicum plant: red, green, yellow or white, hollow and containing seeds, and in a wide range of mild (sweet, nonspicy) to hot (spicy) varieties.

    Synonyms: capsicum

  4. 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
    • Some ballparks have signs saying "No pepper games".
  5. 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.
  6. A beating; a thrashing.
    • He means to snatch the laurels from his brow, / At all his boasted pluck and prowess smile, / And give him pepper in superior style. - 1906, Henry Downes Miles, Pugilistica, page 61:
    • [T]he Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and...
  7. A shotgun.
    • Chew beef like breakfast (Yum) Two shanks, get 'round in seconds (Two) Be feeding my area, peppers - 2017 January 17, “Kennington Where It Started”, Biz of Harlem Spartans (lyrics), 0:28:
    • Number plates already hot, and plus we've got like three peppers - 2023 June 18, “100mph Freestyle x3”, Clavish (lyrics), 3:24:

Origin

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, Norwegian Bokmål pepper, Norwegian Nynorsk pepar, Swedish peppar, Icelandic pipar. Doublet of falafel and peepul.

Forms

peppers piper

Derived

alligator pepper Ashanti pepper banana pepper bell pepper bepepper betel pepper bird pepper black pepper black pepper snake Brazilian pepper tree California pepper tree cayenne pepper cherry pepper chile pepper chili pepper chilli pepper cone pepper conical pepper conic pepper Culpepper Espelette pepper ghost chili pepper ghost pepper green pepper

Verb

  1. To add pepper to.
  2. To strike with something made up of small particles.
  3. To cover with lots of (something made up of small things).
    • After the hailstorm, the beach was peppered with holes.
  4. To add (something) at frequent intervals.
    • He liked to pepper long words throughout his conversation.
  5. To beat or thrash.
    • I am pepperd for this world, I am sped yfaith, he hath made wormes meate of me - c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
  6. To use a pepper (type of value used prior to hashing).
  7. To shoot (upon) with the dotty.
  8. To write accents or disambiguating marks in script.

Forms

peppers peppering peppered piper

Related

salt

Derived

pepper up