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Peck at   /pɛk æt/   Listen
verb
Peck  v. i.  
1.
To make strokes with the beak, or with a pointed instrument.
2.
To pick up food with the beak; hence, to eat. "(The hen) went pecking by his side."
To peck at,
(a)
to attack with petty and repeated blows; to carp at; to nag; to tease.
(a)
to eat slowly and in small portions, with litle interest; as, to peck at one's food.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Peck at" Quotes from Famous Books



... dear," she said, making a peck at Kitty's cheek. "That flunkey, idling his life away on the hall mat, said I should find you here, so I saved him from overwork by showing myself in. How are you, St. John? You're looking a bit peaky this ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... Merrit, as she came into the study one afternoon towards dusk with a step-ladder. "You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs. Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when he fancies he's hungry. You're ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various

... speak, my tears fall on his sleek black wings and his dear gray head. I try to kiss him; but he makes such a spiteful peck at my nose, that I have to give up the idea. Thus one of my good-byes is over. By the time that they are all ended, and we have returned to the house, I am drowned in tears, and my appearance for the day is irretrievably damaged. My nose is certainly very red. It surprises even myself, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... Amazons against the Greeks, OVIDIUS hints, proud manhood galls and piques. No doubt; yet NASO did it in his day, And we, in ours, who, sorely-pressed, would stay The rising tide of Revolution, check Disintegration, of the claws who'd peck At our political sleeves and platform hearts Must not be frightened. "Rummiest of starts," The ribald Cockney cries; to see at length, "The Tory seeking to recruit his strength Prom those he dubbed, in earlier, scornfuller ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various

... to make the ball roll out of the way of the hen. The stick would slip off it when Bunny reached for it, and whenever the stick came near the hen she would peck at it. Once she almost knocked it ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope


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