an outsider enviously peeking in

When you peek, you take a quick glance at something. It's incredibly tempting when you're little to peek at your birthday presents, but you soon learn how disappointing it is to spoil the surprise.

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS:

peak / peek / pique

Let's look at three homophones: peak, peek,and pique. Peak is a topmost point, such as a mountain peak, or to reach that point.  Continue reading...

A sneaky look at something is a peek. You might peek at someone if you're shy or you don't want them to catch you looking. You can also describe a glance at a part of something as "apeek" — like when you take a peek at a napping child. Peek comes frompiken, a 14th century word meaning "look quickly and slyly." Until the 15th century, the word peek was used interchangeably with keek andpeep.

DEFINITIONS OF:peek

1

vthrow a glance at; take a brief look at

“I only peeked--I didn't see anything interesting”

Synonyms:

glance, glint

Type of:

look

perceive with attention; direct one's gaze towards

na secret look

Synonyms:

peep

Type of:

look, looking, looking at

the act of directing the eyes toward something and perceiving it visually