peek
- 01 B1 Intermediate
v.to look at something quickly and secretly, especially when you are not supposed to.
v.to look surreptitiously or slyly, often through a small opening or from a concealed position.
Simple“The children tried to peek through the keyhole to see their presents.”
In context“She couldn't resist the urge to peek at the final chapter of the novel while she was only halfway through the book.”
PitfallHe took a peak at the gift. He took a peek at the gift.Do not confuse 'peek' (a look) with 'peak' (the top of a mountain).
- 02 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to be just barely visible, like something coming out from behind a cloud.
v.to be only partially or slightly visible, as if emerging from a hiding place or cover.
Simple“The sun began to peek through the clouds after the heavy rain.”
In context“A few bright green shoots were starting to peek through the melting snow, signalling the arrival of early spring.”
- 03 C2 Proficiency
v.to look at a specific piece of information stored in a computer's memory.
v.to retrieve a value from a specific memory address, common in early programming languages like BASIC.
Simple“The programmer used a command to peek at the data in that memory slot.”
In context“In legacy systems, developers would frequently peek and poke memory addresses to manipulate hardware registers directly.”
- 04 B1 Intermediate
From Middle English *peken, piken, pyken (“to peep”), probably a fusion of Middle English pepen (“to peep”) and keken, kiken (“to keek, look, spy”), equivalent to a blend of peep + keek. Perhaps also possibly a metathetic alteration of Middle English kepen, kipen, kypen (“to keep, look, observe, watch”).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.