pee, a coat of coarse cloth; also, of velvet; ‘A velvet pee’, Fletcher, Love’s Cure, ii. 1 (Lazarillo). Du. pije, ‘a pie-gowne, or a rough-gowne, as souldiers and sea-men weare’ (Hexham); whence pea-jacket.
peeble, pebble; ‘The chaste stream, that ’mong loose peebles fell’, Cowley, Davideis, i. 677 (NED.); peeble-stone, Golding, Metam. i. 575. The usual Scottish pronunc. (EDD.).
peedee, a foot-boy, serving-lad, drudge. Lady Alimony, ii. 1 (1 Boy); pedee, J. Jones, tr. of Ovid’s Ibis, 160, note (NED.); Phillips, Dict., 1706.
peek, peke, to peep. Skelton, Magnyfycence, 667; ‘I peke or prie’, Palsgrave. In common prov. use (EDD.).
peel-crow; see [pilcrow].
peeled, bald, shorn, with tonsured head. 1 Hen. VI, i. 3. 30.
peep, an eye or spot on a die. Middleton, Father Hubberd’s Tales, ed. Dyce, v. 581. Also, a pip on a card; Herrick, Oberon’s Palace, l. 49; ‘Pinta, among Gamesters a peep in a card’ (Stevens). ‘Peep’ is the usual word for ‘pip’ of a card, die, or domino in NE. Derbyshire and S. Yorkshire (H. Bradley). Cp. ‘peep’ in prov. use in the sense of a single blossom of flowers growing in a cluster, see EDD. (s.v. Pip, sb.2 1). See [pip].
peepin, pepin, a pippin. Dekker, O. Fortunatus, v. 2. See Dict. (s.v. Pippin).
peevish, self-willed, obstinate. Two Gent. iii. 1. 68; Merry Wives, i. 4. 14; Massinger, Virgin Martyr, iii. 3 (Harpax); ‘Pertinax hominum genus, a peevish generation of men’, Burton, Anat. Mel., Pt. iii, § 4. Hence peevishness, obstinacy, ‘An inbred peevishness and engraffed pertinacity’, Holland, Livy, 1152. See Trench, Select Glossary; also Trench, Synonyms of the New Testament, Pref. to 8th ed., p. xxi.
pegma, pegme, a kind of framework or stage used in theatrical displays or pageants, sometimes bearing an inscription; also, the inscription itself; ‘In the centre . . . of the pegme there was an aback or square, wherein this eulogy was written’, B. Jonson, Jas. I’s Coronation Entertainment (Wks., Routledge, p. 529, after inscription ‘His Vincas’; ‘We shall heare . . . who penned the Pegmas’, Chapman, Widow’s Tears, ii. 3 (Ianthe). L. pegma, Gk. πῆγμα, framework fixed together.