Word Direct Answers

What does "peer" mean?

Peer: Etym: [Perh. a different word; cf. OE. piren, LG. piren. Cf. Pry to peep.] To look narrowly or curiously or intently; to peep; as, the peering day. Milton. Peering in maps for ports, and piers, and roads. Shak. As if through a dungeon grate he peered. Coleridge.

Additional senses

  1. 2.One of the same rank, quality, endowments, character, etc.; an equal; a match; a mate. In song he never had his peer. Dryden. Shall they consort only with their peers I. Taylor.
  2. 3.A comrade; a companion; a fellow; an associate. He all his peers in beauty did surpass. Spenser.
  3. 4.A nobleman; a member of one of the five degrees of the British nobility, namely, duke, marquis, earl, viscount, baron; as, a peer of the realm. A noble peer of mickle trust and power. Milton. House of Peers, The Peers, the British House of Lords. See Parliament. -- Spiritual peers, the bishops and archibishops, or lords spiritual, who sit in the House of Lords.
  4. 5.To make equal in rank. [R.] Heylin.
  5. 6.To be, or to assume to be, equal. [R.]

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