# pepper

Pronunciation: US say "PEP-ur" /ˈpɛpɚ/; UK say "PEP-uh" /ˈpɛpə/

## Noun

1. The spice made by drying the unripe berries of the pepper plant after fermenting them.
   - Simple: A spice made from small dried berries, used to give food a hot, sharp taste.
   - _He ground fresh pepper over the pasta before serving._
   - _The recipe calls for a pinch of pepper and a dash of nutmeg._
2. A hollow fruit of the capsicum plant, containing seeds and ranging in color from red and green to yellow or white, in varieties from mild and sweet to hot and spicy. *(Canada, Ireland)*
   - Simple: A hollow fruit with seeds inside, eaten as a vegetable. Some kinds are sweet and some are hot.
   - _She stuffed each pepper with rice and herbs before baking._
   - _The market sells sweet peppers in red, yellow, and green._
3. Any plant belonging to the family Piperaceae.
   - Simple: A kind of tropical plant. The most well-known one gives us the spice we put on food.
   - _Several peppers wound their way up the trellis at the garden's edge._
   - _The pepper is cultivated across the tropics for the berries it produces._
8. A beating or a thrashing. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A beating, or a heavy loss in a fight or game.
   - _The veteran took plenty of pepper before finally going down in the eighth._
   - _Critics gave the new policy serious pepper at the committee hearing._
10. A baseball warm-up drill in which fielders stand close to a batter and quickly return each batted ball to be hit again.
   - Simple: A baseball warm-up game where one batter taps the ball to nearby players, who toss it right back.
   - _Before batting practice, the infielders loosened up with a round of pepper._
   - _Many ballparks post signs forbidding pepper near the stands._
11. A randomly generated value added to another value, such as a password, before hashing. Unlike a salt, a fresh value is created for each input and held separately from it.
   - Simple: A secret random value added to a password before it is turned into code, and kept stored separately.
   - _Each user's password is combined with a unique pepper before hashing._
   - _Because the pepper is stored apart from the database, a stolen password file alone is not enough._
13. A shotgun: a firearm that discharges a spread of small pellets. *(dialectal, Multicultural London English)*
   - Simple: A gun that fires a spray of small metal pellets.
   - _He loaded the pepper and waited quietly in the duck blind._
   - _She kept a battered old pepper mounted above the fireplace._

## Verb

4. To season a dish by adding pepper to it.
   - Simple: To put pepper on food to give it a hot, sharp taste.
   - _He salted and peppered the eggs without tasting them first._
   - _Always pepper the sauce lightly so the flavor stays balanced._
5. To add something repeatedly, at frequent intervals throughout a larger whole.
   - Simple: To put small bits of something here and there, again and again.
   - _He peppered his speech with quotations from old poets._
   - _Writers often pepper their dialogue with slang to make it feel real._
6. To cover a surface with many small things scattered all over it.
   - Simple: To cover something with many small things spread all over it.
   - _Wildflowers peppered the hillside with bursts of color._
   - _Stars pepper the night sky in places far from city lights._
7. To strike a target repeatedly with many small particles, such as shot or gravel.
   - Simple: To hit something many times with small flying bits, like pellets or stones.
   - _Shrapnel peppered the wall beside the crouching soldiers._
   - _Desert sandstorms pepper exposed skin with stinging grains._
9. To beat or thrash someone, or to defeat them heavily. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To beat someone badly, or to defeat them by a lot.
   - _The champion peppered his challenger for ten brutal rounds._
   - _Veteran sides routinely pepper nervous newcomers in the opening match._
12. To apply a pepper (a secret value) to data such as a password before hashing it.
   - Simple: To protect a password by adding a secret value to it before it is turned into code.
   - _The system peppers every credential before applying the hash function._
   - _Engineers often pepper passwords in addition to salting them._
14. To fire upon a target with a shotgun, striking it with a spray of small shot. *(dialectal, Multicultural London English)*
   - Simple: To shoot at someone or something with a gun that sprays small pellets.
   - _The guards peppered the fleeing poacher's heels with birdshot._
   - _Farmers would pepper the crows that raided the new seed._
15. To write accents or other small marks onto letters in a script to make their sound or meaning clear. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To add small marks to written letters to show how they sound.
   - _The copyist peppered the manuscript with vowel points for new readers._
   - _Teachers pepper the unfamiliar letters with diacritics to guide pronunciation._

## Origin

From Middle English peper, from Old English piper, from Proto-West Germanic *pipar, borrowed from Latin piper, which came from an Indo-Aryan source; compare Sanskrit pippali ('long pepper'). It is related to Dutch peper, German Pfeffer, and Swedish peppar.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/pepper (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).