peak
Pluralpeaks
Often confused with peek and pique
Pluralpeaks
- 1The pointed top of a mountain or hill; also, a whole mountain with a pointed top, especially one standing apart from others.
The mountain's jagged peak pierced the morning clouds.
Several peaks in the northern range remain unclimbed.
UsageDo not confuse it with peek, a quick look: a sneak peek (not
incorrect: sneak peak).Similarsummit, top, pinnacle, crest
Note
Summit and top overlap with this sense, but it keeps the idea of a point. A peak ends sharply, while a summit may be broad.
- 2The highest point, level, or degree that something reaches, especially the highest value of a quantity within a given period of time.
Traffic reaches its peak during the morning commute.
The pandemic's infection peaks differed sharply across regions.
UsageOften reach a peak or at its peak: prices at their peak.
Similarsummit, climax, apex, pinnacle, zenith
Note
A figure borrowed from the mountain and applied to numbers such as prices, incomes and markets. Often the fall that follows is the point of mentioning it.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- The quantitative sense uses a mountain metaphor to describe economic highs. etheses.bham.ac.uk
- 3To reach the highest degree or maximum before beginning to decline.
Her athletic career peaked in her early thirties.
Demand tends to peak just before the holidays.
UsageUsually with a time: peaked in her thirties, peaks before the holidays.
Similarcrest, culminate, climax
Note
A decline is often in view, as when historians argue over when Rome began to peak and decay.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Historians disagree about when Rome's decline began. en.wikipedia.org
- 4At the greatest extent or maximum level.
Athletes train year-round to reach peak performance.
The plant operates at peak capacity through the summer months.
UsageGoes before a noun: peak hours, peak season, peak performance.
Similarmaximum, top, optimum, full
Note
Two compounds have grown into catchphrases, peak oil and Peak TV. Each names the point or period when something reaches its greatest extent. Here the meaning stays measurable, a matter of how much rather than how good.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Peak TV can also denote a golden age associated with television's quality and prestige. en.wikipedia.org
- 5The sharp end or top of anything that comes to a point.
Whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
The peak of the roof was crowned with an iron weathervane.
UsageIn cooking, egg whites are beaten to soft peaks or stiff peaks.
Similarpoint, tip, apex, crest
Note
Cooks still rely on it for the stiff, well-defined tips that properly whipped egg whites hold. In Britain the front of a cap is still called its peak in just this sense.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Egg whites whipped to stiff peaks hold firm, well-defined tips. williams-sonoma.com
- 6A local maximum of a function: each point where the value rises higher than its immediate neighbors before falling.
The function reaches a peak wherever its slope changes from positive to negative.
Analysts counted the peaks in the data to estimate the signal's frequency.
Similarmaximum
Note
Mathematics makes the word local. A function can have many peaks, and none of them needs to be its highest value overall. A sine wave shows this plainly, with a peak at every crest where y reaches its maximum. That plurality separates it from the everyday "highest value" sense, which usually means a single top for a whole period.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- A function can have multiple local maxima, which need not attain its highest value overall. openstax.org
- A sine wave has repeated peaks at its crests, where its maximum value is attained. ximera.osu.edu
Less common meanings
- 7To rise or extend into a point, or to take on the shape of a peak.
Beat the egg whites until they peak.
The roof peaks at the center to shed heavy snow.
Note
The shape verb: roofs and beaten egg whites rise into a point. It has a long history in English. Philemon Holland's translation of Ammianus Marcellinus (1609) has a mountain that "peaketh up," with the particle up making the rising explicit. It stays apart from reaching a maximum because it describes form, not quantity.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Philemon Holland's English translation of Livy was first published in 1600. en.wikipedia.org
- The shape verb has a long history in English. en.wiktionary.org
- 8The stiff, horizontal front part of a cap that projects forward to shade the wearer's eyes.
She tugged the peak of her cap low over her brow.
The school caps had stiff peaks and a small embroidered badge.
Note
In British English this is the stiff front of a cap that shades the eyes, and visor names the same part more generally. The usage is old. The front of a cap was already its peak in the pointed-end sense, and here the word has settled on that one projecting piece of headwear.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- The use of peak for part of a cap is old. gutenberg.org
- The front of a cap was included under the general pointed-end sense of peak. readingroo.ms
- 9Being the most typical or extreme example of its kind, whether admired or mocked.
Wearing socks with sandals to a backyard barbecue is peak dad behavior.
Fresh garden tomatoes with a pinch of salt are peak summer eating.
UsageCommon after be: that was so peak. Before a noun it often means the most typical case: peak dad behavior.
Similarquintessential, classic, ultimate
- 10Something regarded as being of exceptional quality.
Her latest album is pure peak from the first track to the last.
The taco truck by the station is absolute peak, trust me.
UsageUsed without a, and with much rather than many: so much peak.
Similarperfection
- 11To overload a piece of audio equipment with a signal stronger than it can handle, so that the signal clips.
The drummer peaked the input channel during the loud chorus.
If you peak the preamp, the whole recording distorts.
Note
Signal processing gives the word an object and a culprit. You peak the preamp or the input channel by driving more level into it than it can carry. What follows is clipping: the tops of the waveform are cut flat because the equipment can go no higher. That is why a peaked recording sounds distorted.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- Driving an input beyond the level its equipment can handle causes clipping. europe.yamaha.com
- Clipping cuts off waveform peaks when the signal exceeds the available maximum. hub.yamaha.com
- Clipping causes distortion. europe.yamaha.com
- 12
- 13(Multicultural London English) Bad, unpleasant, or unfortunate; hard to put up with.
The burger was peak, cold in the middle and dripping with grease.
That phone's camera is peak; every photo comes out blurry and dark.
UsageUsually it's peak or that's peak. Elsewhere online, peak can mean very good, so it depends on the speaker.
Similarbad, awful, terrible, rubbish
Note
In Multicultural London English the word flips: it's peak means something has gone badly. Tinie Tempah's "Its Peak" (2015), with Stormzy and Bugzy Malone, builds its chorus on a run of small social mishaps, each one judged peak.
- 14(archaic) To become thin, pale, and sickly-looking, especially with a sharp, hollow face.
Dwindle, peak, and pine.
c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth” - 15On a fore-and-aft sail, the corner that is both highest and farthest aft.
- 16The narrow part of a ship's bow, or the storage hold within it.
- 17The pointed tip at the end of an anchor's fluke, also called the bill.
- 18To raise the outer end of a gaff so it stands closer to vertical.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
The word developed from earlier peake, an altered form of pike. That goes back to Old English pīc ("a pike, needle, pin, peak, pinnacle") and further to Proto-West Germanic *pīk and Proto-Germanic *pīkaz ("peak"). Dutch piek, Danish pik, Swedish pik and Norwegian pik are cognates.
No one knows where it comes from. It may be linked to peak in the sense of a point, through the notion of "becoming pointed" as the body wastes away.