different between smack vs peck

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /smæk/
• Rhymes: -æk

Etymology 1

From Middle English smac, smak, smacke, from Old English smæc, smæ?? (“taste, smatch”), from Proto-Germanic *smakkuz (“a taste”), from Proto-Indo-European *smeg?-, *smeg- (“to taste”). Cognate with English dialectal smatch, Scots smak (“scent, smell, taste, flavour”), Saterland Frisian Smoak (“taste”), West Frisian smaak (“taste”), Dutch smaak (“taste”), German Schmack, Geschmack (“taste”), Swedish and Norwegian smak (“taste”), Norwegian smekke . Akin to Old English smæ??an (“to taste, smack”). More at smake, smatch.

Noun

smack (countable and uncountable, plural smacks)

1. A distinct flavor, especially if slight.

   rice pudding with a smack of cinnamon
2. A slight trace of something; a smattering.
   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     He was not sailorly, and yet he had a smack of the sea about him too.

3. (slang, uncountable) Heroin.
4. (Northern England) A form of fried potato; a scallop.

Derived terms

• foresmack
• smackless

Translations

Verb

smack (third-person singular simple present smacks, present participle smacking, simple past and past participle smacked)

1. (transitive) To get the flavor of.
   • 1827, Thomas Carlyle (translator), Johann August Musæus, "Melechsala" (1782-86); in German Romance I. 175

     He soon smacked the taste of physic hidden in this sweetness.

2. (intransitive) To indicate or suggest something; used with of.

   Her reckless behavior smacks of pride.
3. (intransitive) To have a particular taste; used with of.
   • 1820-25, Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia

     He had his tea and hot rolls in a morning, while we were battening upon our quarter-of-a-penny loaf — our crug — moistened with attenuated small beer, in wooden piggings, smacking of the pitched leathern jack it was poured from.

Derived terms

• smack of

Etymology 2

From Middle Low German smack (Low German Schmacke, Schmaake (“small ship”)) or Dutch smak, perhaps ultimately related to smakken, imitative of the sails' noise.

Noun

smack (plural smacks)

2. A small sailing vessel, commonly rigged as a sloop, used chiefly in the coasting and fishing trade and often called a fishing smack
3. A group of jellyfish.

Translations

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “smack”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Etymology 3

From Middle Dutch smacken, of imitative origin.

Akin to German schmatzen (“eat noisily”), Dutch smakken (“to fling down”), Plautdietsch schmaksen (“to smack the lips”), regional German schmacken, Schmackes (“vigour”) (compare Swedish smak (“slap”), Middle Low German smacken, the first part of Saterland Frisian smakmuulje (“smack”)).

Noun

smack (plural smacks)

1. A sharp blow; a slap. See also: spank.
2. The sound of a loud kiss.
3. A quick, sharp noise, as of the lips when suddenly separated, or of a whip.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

smack (third-person singular simple present smacks, present participle smacking, simple past and past participle smacked)

1. To slap or hit someone.
2. To make a smacking sound.
   • 1832, Banjamin Disraeli, Contarini Fleming

     A horse neighed, and a whip smacked, there was a whistle, and the sound of a cart wheel.

3. (New Zealand) To strike a child (usually on the buttocks) as a form of discipline. (US spank)
4. To wetly separate the lips, making a noise, after tasting something or in expectation of a treat.
   • 1763, Robert Lloyd, “A Familiar Epistle” in St. James Magazine:

     But when, obedient to the mode / Of panegyric, courtly ode / The bard bestrides, his annual hack, / In vain I taste, and sip and smack, / I find no flavour of the Sack.

5. To kiss with a close compression of the lips, so as to make a sound when they separate.

Translations

Adverb

smack (not comparable)

1. As if with a smack or slap; smartly; sharply.

   Right smack bang in the middle.

Derived terms

• smack-dab

Further reading

• Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.

Anagrams

• macks

Swedish

Noun

smack n

1. (in the phrase "inte ett smack") smidgeon, piece, small bit

See also

• inte ett smack

Anagrams

• macks

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p?k/
• Rhymes: -?k

Etymology 1

From Middle English pecken, pekken, variant of Middle English piken, picken, pikken (“to pick, use a pointed implement”). More at pick.

Verb

peck (third-person singular simple present pecks, present participle pecking, simple past and past participle pecked)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To strike or pierce with the beak or bill (of a bird).

   The birds pecked at their food.

   • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Chapter 2

     The rooster had been known to fly on her shoulder and peck her neck, so that now she carried a stick or took one of the children with her when she went to feed the fowls.

2. (transitive) To form by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument.

   to peck a hole in a tree

3. To strike, pick, thrust against, or dig into, with a pointed instrument, especially with repeated quick movements.
4. To seize and pick up with the beak, or as if with the beak; to bite; to eat; often with up.

   • 1713 September 14, letter to Joseph Addison, The Guardian, issue 160.

5. To do something in small, intermittent pieces.

   He has been pecking away at that project for some time now.

6. To type by searching for each key individually.
7. (rare) To type in general.
8. To kiss briefly.
   • 1997, J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 1; 1998 ed., Scholastic Press, ?ISBN, p. 2

     At half past eight, Mr. Dursley picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Dursley on the cheek, and tried to kiss Dudley good-bye but missed, because Dudley was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls.

Derived terms

• pecking order
• peckish
• woodpecker

Translations

Noun

peck (plural pecks)

1. An act of striking with a beak.
2. A small kiss.

Translations

Etymology 2

Probably from Anglo-Norman pek, pekke, of uncertain origin.

Noun

peck (plural pecks)

1. One quarter of a bushel; a dry measure of eight quarts.

   They picked a peck of wheat.
2. A great deal; a large or excessive quantity.

   She figured most children probably ate a peck of dirt before they turned ten.

Translations

Etymology 3

Variant of pick (“to throw”).

Verb

peck (third-person singular simple present pecks, present participle pecking, simple past and past participle pecked)

1. (regional) To throw.
2. To lurch forward; especially, of a horse, to stumble after hitting the ground with the toe instead of the flat of the foot.
   • 1928, Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, Penguin 2013, p. 97:

     Anyhow, one of them fell, another one pecked badly, and Jerry disengaged himself from the group to scuttle up the short strip of meadow to win by a length.

Etymology 4

Noun

peck (uncountable)

1. Discoloration caused by fungus growth or insects.

   an occurrence of peck in rice

Derived terms

• pecky

Etymology 5

Noun

peck

1. Misspelling of pec.