<B>Pegasus, </B>noun,<DL COMPACT><DD> (genitive) (def. 3) <B>Pegasi.</B> <DD><B> 1. </B>(Greek Mythology.) a horse with wings, the steed of the Muses. <DD><B> 2. </B>poetic genius; the means by which poets soar in the realms of poetry. <DD><B> 3. </B>a constellation in the northern sky near Andromeda. <BR> <I>Ex. Standing high in the eastern sky, just below Cygnus, we find Pegasus, the winged horse, which contains no stars of the first magnitude although it does have a characteristic figure called the "great square" (Science News Letter).</I> <BR><I>expr. <B>mount</B> (<B>one's</B>) <B>Pegasus,</B> </I>to begin writing a poem. <BR> <I>Ex. Then he mounted the ... vulture-winged Pegasus of passion (Christina Stead).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="pegboard">
<B>pegboard, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a board containing evenly spaced holes for pegs, used for scoring games, such as cribbage. <DD><B> 2. </B>a larger board, attached to a wall, having holes in which pegs or hooks are inserted to hold tools, utensils, displays, memorandums, etc. </DL>
<A NAME="pegbox">
<B>pegbox, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the head of a stringed instrument containing the pegs to which the strings are attached for tuning. </DL>
<A NAME="peggedpants">
<B>pegged pants,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> pants wide at the hips and gradually narrowing to the ankles; peg tops. </DL>
<A NAME="pegger">
<B>pegger, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a person or thing that pegs. <DD><B> 2. </B>a machine for driving pegs in shoemaking. </DL>
<A NAME="pegleg">
<B>peg leg,</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a wooden leg. <DD><B> 2. </B>(Informal.) a person who has a wooden leg. </DL>
<A NAME="peglegged">
<B>peg-legged, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> having a wooden leg. </DL>
<A NAME="pegmatite">
<B>pegmatite, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a coarsely crystallized kind of granite occurring in veins and dikes, and usually containing crystals of the common minerals found in granite, but sometimes containing rare minerals rich in such elements as lithium, uranium, and tantalum. <DD><B> 2. </B>granite with a graphic texture. </DL>
<A NAME="pegmatitic">
<B>pegmatitic, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> consisting of, characteristic of, or resembling pegmatite. <BR> <I>Ex. pegmatitic deposits in Norway.</I> </DL>
<A NAME="pegmatization">
<B>pegmatization, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the filling of a rock with veins of pegmatite. </DL>
<A NAME="pegtankard">
<B>peg tankard,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a tankard with pegs inserted at regular intervals, formerly used to mark the quantity each person was to drink. </DL>
<A NAME="pegtop">
<B>peg top,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a wooden top with a metal peg on which it spins when a string wound around the top is rapidly uncoiled. </DL>
<A NAME="pegtop">
<B>peg-top, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD> shaped like a peg top. </DL>
<A NAME="pegtops">
<B>peg tops,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> trousers wide at the hips and gradually narrowing to the ankles. </DL>
<A NAME="pegtoptrousers">
<B>peg-top trousers</B> or <B>peg trousers,</B> =peg tops.</DL>
<A NAME="peh">
<B>peh, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the seventeenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Also, <B>pe.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="pehlevi">
<B>Pehlevi, </B>noun. =Pahlavi.</DL>
<A NAME="pei">
<B>P.E.I.,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> Prince Edward Island. </DL>
<A NAME="peignoir">
<B>peignoir, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>a loose or very full dressing gown for women, originally worn while the hair was being combed. <BR> <I>Ex. [She] padded about the palace kitchen in her silken peignoir, serving endless cups of coffee (Time).</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>any negligee. </DL>
<A NAME="pein">
<B>pein, </B>noun, transitive verb. =peen.</DL>
<A NAME="peineforteetdure">
<B>peine forte et dure,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (French.) <DD><B> 1. </B>very severe and harsh punishment. <DD><B> 2. </B>a former method of punishment or torture inflicted on a prisoner who refused to plead. It consisted of placing heavy weights on the body of the prisoner until he pleaded or died. </DL>
<A NAME="peise">
<B>peise, </B>transitive verb, <B>peised,</B> <B>peising.</B><DL COMPACT><DD> (Dialect.) <DD><B> 1. </B>to weigh or measure the weight of, as in a balance. <DD><B> 2. </B>(Figurative.) to weigh in the mind; consider; ponder. <DD><B> 3. </B>to weigh down; oppress; burden. </DL>
<A NAME="pejorate">
<B>pejorate, </B>verb, <B>-rated,</B> <B>-rating.</B><DL COMPACT><DD><I>v.t. </I> to make worse; cause to deteriorate; disparage. <DD><I>v.i. </I> to become worse. </DL>
<A NAME="pejorative">
<B>pejorative, </B>adjective, noun.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>adj. </I> <B>1. </B>tending to make worse; disparaging; depreciatory. <BR> <I>Ex. Throughout all the changes of religion, social and political constitution, and rulers, the real mistress of the Greeks has been sophism--sometimes, but not always, in the pejorative sense of the word (Atlantic).</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>of or having to do with various disparaging or depreciatory derivative words formed by the addition of a suffix to a root word of neutral or favorable connotations. <DD><I>noun </I> a pejorative word, suffix, or phrase. <BR> <I>Ex. What it [ingratiatingly] actually means is something like 'cringingly anxious to please.' It is a pejorative, and it should be used only as such (New Yorker).</I> adv. <B>pejoratively.</B> </DL>
<B>Peke, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a Pekingese dog. <BR> <I>Ex. The breed standard issued by the Kennel Club decrees ... that the Peke be leonine in shape with massive skull (Cape Times).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="pekin">
<B>pekin, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a silk fabric, originally made only in China, often patterned with broad stripes or figures. </DL>
<A NAME="pekin">
<B>Pekin, </B>noun, or <B>Pekin duck,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> any one of a breed of large white ducks, originally of China, raised primarily for the production of meat. <BR> <I>Ex. Pekin ducks, which weigh about 8 pounds, are the most common commercially raised ducks in the United States (William H. Drury).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="pekinese">
<B>Pekinese, </B>noun, pl. <B>-ese,</B> adjective. =Pekingese.</DL>
<A NAME="peking">
<B>Peking, </B>noun, or <B>Peking duck,</B> =Pekin.</DL>
<A NAME="pekingese">
<B>Pekingese, </B>noun, pl. <B>-ese,</B> adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> <B>1. </B>a very small dog originally of China, with long silky hair and a pug nose. <DD><B> 2. </B>a native or inhabitant of Peking, China. <BR> <I>Ex. Most Pekingese, men and women alike, now wear a baleful blue dungaree uniform that gives them, and the city streets, a monotonous look (Time).</I> <DD><B> 3. </B>the form of Chinese used in Peking, the standard form of Mandarin. <DD><I>adj. </I> of or having to do with Peking or its people. </DL>
<A NAME="pekingman">
<B>Peking man,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a prehistoric man of the Pleistocene, identified from fossil bones found in caves near Peking in 1929; Sinanthropus pekinensis. <BR> <I>Ex. Peking man, Java man, the Neanderthal--none dates farther back than 600,000 years (Newsweek).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="pekingologist">
<B>Pekingologist, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a student or observer of the policies and practices of the government of the Chinese People's Republic. <BR> <I>Ex. Professional China watchers--often called Pekingologists, ... are constantly sifting through the raw material that Hong Kong provides them with (New Yorker).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="pekingology">
<B>Pekingology, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the study of the policies and practices of the government of the Chinese People's Republic. </DL>
<A NAME="pekinologist">
<B>Pekinologist, </B>noun. =Pekingologist.</DL>
<A NAME="pekinology">
<B>Pekinology, </B>noun. =Pekingology.</DL>
<A NAME="pekinstripes">
<B>pekin stripes,</B><DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>lengthwise stripes, especially of uniform width, in textile fabrics. <DD><B> 2. </B>fabrics with such stripes. </DL>
<A NAME="pekoe">
<B>pekoe, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a kind of black tea from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) or India, made from leaves picked while very young. </DL>
<A NAME="pelage">
<B>pelage, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the hair, fur, wool, or other soft covering of a four-footed mammal. </DL>
<A NAME="pelagian">
<B>Pelagian, </B>noun, adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> a follower of Pelagianism. <DD><I>adj. </I> of or having to do with Pelagius or Pelagianism. </DL>
<A NAME="pelagianism">
<B>Pelagianism, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> the doctrines of Pelagius, a British monk who died about 420 A.D., which denied original sin and maintained that the human will is of itself capable of good without the assistance of divine grace. </DL>
<A NAME="pelagic">
<B>pelagic, </B>adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><B> 1. </B>of the ocean or the open sea; oceanic. <BR> <I>Ex. In the open parts of the ocean, the pelagic region, plants and animals differ considerably from those along the seashore (Harbaugh and Goodrich).</I> <DD><B> 2. </B>living on or near the surface of the open sea or ocean, at some distance from land, as certain animals and plants do. <DD><B> 3. </B>of or having to do with a person who hunts seals, or the operation of hunting seals, as a commercial venture on the high seas, using rifles, harpoons, and other equipment. <BR> <I>Ex. pelagic fishery investigations.</I> adv. <B>pelagically.</B> </DL>
<A NAME="pelargonate">
<B>pelargonate, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> a salt of pelargonic acid. </DL>
<A NAME="pelargonicacid">
<B>pelargonic acid,</B><DL COMPACT><DD> a colorless or yellowish oily acid, present as an ester in an oil in geranium leaves and produced synthetically. </DL>
<A NAME="pelargonium">
<B>pelargonium, </B>noun.<DL COMPACT><DD> any one of a genus of plants of the geranium family, chiefly natives of South Africa, having fragrant leaves and large clusters of showy flowers; stork's-bill; geranium. The plants are often grown in pots and window boxes. <BR> <I>Ex. The plant that most gardeners in the West--and elsewhere--refer to as a geranium is botanically a pelargonium (New York Times).</I> </DL>
<A NAME="pelasgi">
<B>Pelasgi, </B>noun pl.<DL COMPACT><DD> the Pelasgians, as a people. </DL>
<A NAME="pelasgian">
<B>Pelasgian, </B>noun, adjective.<DL COMPACT><DD><I>noun </I> one of an ancient people (the Pelasgi) of doubtful ethnological affinities, widely spread over the coasts and islands of the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean, and believed to have occupied Greece in prehistoric times. <DD><I>adj. </I> of, having to do with, or characteristic of the Pelasgians. <BR> <I>Ex. The Tosks live south of the river, and descend from European Pelasgian tribes (S. Skendi).</I> </DL>
