pepper

Definition

A plant of the family Piperaceae.

Etymology

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, Swedish peppar, Icelandic pipar. Doublet of falafel and peepul.

Example Sentences

• "Some ballparks have signs saying "No pepper games"."
• "He means to snatch the laurels from his brow, / At all his boasted pluck and prowess smile, / And give him pepper in superior style."
• "[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 finished."