Peep \Peep\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Peeped}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Peeping}.] [Of imitative origin; cf. OE. pipen, F. piper, p['e]pier, L. pipire, pipare, pipiare, D. & G. piepen. Senses 2 and 3 perhaps come from a transfer of sense from the sound which chickens make upon the first breaking of the shell to the act accompanying it; or perhaps from the influence of peek, or peak. Cf. {Pipe}.] 1. To cry, as a chicken hatching or newly hatched; to chirp; to cheep.
There was none that moved the wing, or opened the mouth, or peeped. --Is. x. 14.
2. To begin to appear; to look forth from concealment; to make the first appearance.
When flowers first peeped, and trees did blossoms bear. --Dryden.
3. To look cautiously or slyly; to peer, as through a crevice; to pry.
eep through the blanket of the dark. --Shak.
From her cabined loophole peep. --Milton.
{Peep sight}, an adjustable piece, pierced with a small hole to peep through in aiming, attached to a rifle or other firearm near the breech.
Peep \Peep\, n. 1. The cry of a young chicken; a chirp.
2. First outlook or appearance.
Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn. --Gray.
3. A sly look; a look as through a crevice, or from a place of concealment.
To take t' other peep at the stars. --Swift.
4. (Zo["o]l.) (a) Any small sandpiper, as the least sandpiper ({Trigna minutilla}). (b) The European meadow pipit ({Anthus pratensis}).
{Peep show}, a small show, or object exhibited, which is viewed through an orifice or a magnifying glass.
{Peep-o'-day boys}, the Irish insurgents of 1784; -- so called from their visiting the house of the loyal Irish at day break in search of arms. [Cant]
Here's a peep behind the scenes at a shooting.
East Germans crossing the now-porous Berlin Wall, and West Berliners drawn to the impromptu international street festival, bought all the fruit and coffee available and flooded businesses from pretzel stands to peep shows.
Holmes, 43, a premier male sex film star of the 1970s and early 1980s, made hundreds of sexually explicit films and thousands of peep shows in his career.
In the first year they made a loss and were too broke to go to Sainsbury's, but the second year was break-even and then a small profit began to peep through. Crisis was just around the corner, though.
He also finds his wife, played by Nastassja Kinski (yet another role which scarcely begins to stretch her) working in a Texas peep show.
Here, next to the first of Elizabeth Bryant's rooms, we peep through a lens set in a sealed door and see the tiny, sharply focused image of a closed room, its interior pristine white.
An attorney for America West said the airline would consider any offers of gates or landing slots which USAir might make, but so far has heard "not a peep" from the carrier.
In June, the city got its first peep show.
"No fuss at all," Mitchell said. "Not a peep." Steve Cowper, the "High Plains Drifter" of Alaska politics, is about to ride off into the sunset again after four bumpy years in the saddle as governor.