Peg, peg, n. a wooden pin for fastening boards, or the soles of shoes: one of the pins on which the strings of a musical instrument are stretched: a reason or excuse for action: a drink of soda-water with brandy, &c.: a degree or step.—v.t. to fasten with a peg: to keep up the market price by buying or selling at a fixed price: to make points during the game of cribbage before the show of hands.—v.i. to work with unremitting effort:—pr.p. peg′ging; pa.t. and pa.p. pegged.—ns. Peg′-fiched, an English game played with pegs or pointed sticks; Peg′-float, a machine for rasping away the ends of pegs inside shoes.—adj. Pegged, fashioned of, or furnished with, pegs.—ns. Peg′ging, the act of fastening with a peg: pegs collectively: a thrashing: determined perseverance in work; Peg′-leg, a wooden leg of the simplest form, or one who walks on such; Peg′-strip, a ribbon of wood cut to the width, &c., of a shoe-peg; Peg′-tank′ard, a drinking-vessel having each one's share marked off by a knob; Peg′-top, a child's plaything made to spin round by winding a string round it and then rapidly pulling it off: (pl.) a kind of trousers, wide at the top and narrow at the ankles.—adj. shaped like a top.—Peg away, to keep continually working.—Take down a peg, to take down, to humble. [Scand.; as in Dan. pig, a spike.]
Pegasus, peg′a-sus, n. a winged horse which arose from the blood of the Gorgon Medusa, when she was slain by Perseus: a genus of small fishes with large, wing-like, pectoral fins: one of the constellations in the northern sky.—adj. Pegasē′an.
Peggy, peg′i, n. one of several small warblers, the whitethroat, &c. [Peggy, from Peg=Meg—Margaret.]
Pegmatite, peg′ma-tīt, n. coarsely crystallised granite.—adj. Pegmatit′ic.
Pehlevi, pā′le-vē, n. an ancient West Iranian idiom during the period of the Sassanides, largely mixed with Semitic words, and poorer in inflections and terminations than Zend (235-640 A.D.): the characters used in writing this language.—adj. of or pertaining to, or written in, Pehlevi. [Pers.]
Peignoir, pēn-wär′, n. a loose wrapper worn by women during their toilet. [Fr.]
Peinct, pāngkt, v.t. (Spens.) to paint.
Peine, pān, n. a form of punishment by pressing to death—usually Peine forte et dure. [Fr.]
Peirastic, pī-ras′tik, adj. tentative.—n. Peiram′eter, an instrument for measuring the resistances of road-surface to traction. [Gr. peira, a trial.]
Peise, pāz, v.t. (Spens., Shak.) to poise, to weigh.—n. a weight. [Poise.]