pepper
pronunciation
How to pronounce pepper in British English:
UK [ˈpepə(r)]
How to pronounce pepper in American English:
US [ˈpepər]
-
- Noun:
- climber having dark red berries (peppercorns) when fully ripe; southern India and Sri Lanka; naturalized in northern Burma and Assam
- any of various tropical plants of the genus Capsicum bearing peppers
- pungent seasoning from the berry of the common pepper plant of East India; use whole or ground
- sweet and hot varieties of fruits of plants of the genus Capsicum
-
- Verb:
- add pepper to
- attack and bombard with or as if with missiles
Word Origin
- pepper
- pepper: [OE] The pepper vine is a native of the East Indies, and its name is oriental in origin too. It comes ultimately from Sanskrit pippalí, which meant ‘berry’, and hence ‘peppercorn’. It came west via Greek péperi and Latin piper, and was borrowed in prehistoric times into the West Germanic languages, giving German pfeffer, Dutch peper, and English pepper. Its application to fruits of the capsicum family, or their pungent dried products (no relation to the original pepper), dates from the 16th century. Pimpernel is a derivative of Latin piper.=> pimpernel
- pepper (n.)
- Old English pipor, from an early West Germanic borrowing of Latin piper "pepper," from Greek piperi, probably (via Persian) from Middle Indic pippari, from Sanskrit pippali "long pepper." The Latin word is the source of German Pfeffer, Italian pepe, French poivre, Old Church Slavonic pipru, Lithuanian pipiras, Old Irish piobhar, Welsh pybyr, etc. Application to fruits of the capsicum family (unrelated, originally native of tropical America) is 16c.
- pepper (v.)
- "to sprinkle as with pepper," 1610s, from pepper (n.). Old English had gepipera. Meaning "to pelt with shot, etc." is from 1640s. Related: Peppered; peppering.