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Etymology and origin of the English word peel

English has three main words spelled peel: the verb "to strip off the skin" with its noun "rind", a baker's shovel, and a small fortified tower on the Scottish Border.[1][2][3] All three come from Latin, but through different words.[1][4]

Pronunciation

peel1 strip; rind

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
a1250, Ancrene Riwle
Borrowed from
Latin pilo via Middle English, Old English
Ultimate origin
Latin pilus

Etymology

The verb is inherited from Middle English pilen (later pelen),[6][1] inherited from Old English pilian (“to peel, strip”),[7][6][8] which Hoad notes is recorded only late;[9] the Old English verb is borrowed from Latin pilō (“to strip of hair, make bald”), which is formed on pilus (“hair”).[7][6][1][8] It was reinforced by Old French pillier (“to tug, pull, plunder”) and peler (“to peel”).[6][1][4] The OED treats peel as a variant of the English verb pill "to plunder; to strip", and the Shorter Oxford suggests that the differentiation of the pair was helped by the two French verbs for peeling and pillaging.[2][3][10] Etymonline thinks it was probably also influenced by Latin pellis (“skin, hide”), and Weekley associated it in sense with the Old French word for skin that comes from it.[7][11] The noun "rind" continues the earlier English noun pill (also pile, late 14th century), altered after the verb, and partly comes from the verb itself.[7][2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To rob or strip a person of possessions, to plunder a place, or to oppress with taxes: a1250, in the Ancrene Riwle, a sense now obsolete.[2] Barnhart dates the forms pilien and pilewin probably before 1200, already meaning both to oppress or extort and to remove a rind or shell.[6]

Semantic evolution

The plundering senses faded slowly: to take goods by violence is recorded until 1586, and to rob or oppress until 1891.[2] The sense of stripping off a skin, rind or bark is found from 1424 in the Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, and stripping a thing of its outer layer from a1450.[2] The intransitive senses followed: to lose an outer layer from 1592 (the 1630s according to Etymonline), and of the layer itself, to come away in strips, from 1640.[2][7] In 1785 Grose recorded the colloquial sense "to undress", originally before a fight.[2] American English added keep one's eyes peeled, "stay alert", by 1852, perhaps a play on the eyes of a potato; the slang peel it, "run off at full speed", by 1860; pilots' peel off, "veer away from a formation", in the Second World War; and hot-rodders' peel out, "speed away", by 1952.[7] Green's Dictionary of Slang records peel "to extract money from a wallet" in 1836.[12] The noun "rind" is dated ?a1450 by the OED and to the 1580s by Etymonline;[2][7] it was shortened from candied peel by 1869, and since 1960 also names a cosmetic treatment that removes the outer layers of the skin.[2]

Timeline

  • before 1200 – the forms pilien, pilewin, probably.[6]
  • a1250 – to rob, plunder (obsolete).[2]
  • 1424 – to pare off a skin or bark.[2]
  • ?a1450 – the noun, the rind or skin of a fruit;[2] the 1580s in Etymonline.[7]
  • a1450 – to strip a thing of its skin or rind.[2]
  • 1592 – to lose an outer layer;[2] the 1630s in Etymonline.[7]
  • 1640 – of an outer layer, to come off.[2]
  • 1785 – to undress (colloquial).[2]
  • 1836 – (slang) to take money from a wallet.[12]
  • 1852 – keep one's eyes peeled (American).[7]
  • 1869 – peel for candied peel.[2]
  • 1952 – peel out.[7]
  • 1960 – a cosmetic skin treatment.[2]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To remove the skin, rind or outer covering from: Peel the carrots before you grate them.
  2. To strip or pull off (an outer layer): He peeled the old poster off the wall.
  3. (intransitive) Of paint, skin, bark and the like: to come off in thin strips or flakes.
  4. (intransitive) Of a surface or a person: to lose its outer layer or shed skin, as after sunburn.
  5. keep one's eyes peeled: to watch carefully, stay alert.

Noun

  1. The skin or rind of a fruit or vegetable, especially of a citrus fruit.
  2. A cosmetic treatment that removes the outer layers of the skin; a chemical peel.

Word family

  • peeler
  • peeling

peel2 baker's shovel

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1396
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman pele via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin pāla

Etymology

The baker's shovel is inherited from Middle English pele, borrowed from Anglo-Norman pele and pelle (“shovel”),[2][3][1] and partly directly from Latin pāla (“spade, shovel, baker's peel, shoulder blade”).[2][7] In Anglo-Norman the noun is recorded from 1235–55, both for a long-handled spade and for a baker's shovel;[13] modern French has pelle.[7][3] Etymonline and the Shorter Oxford relate the Latin noun to pangō (“to fix, fasten, plant”), and Etymonline reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *pag-slo-, from the root *pag- (“to fasten”);[7][3][1] Klein calls it of uncertain origin, perhaps related to pālus (“stake”).[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A pole with a broad flat end, used to put loaves into an oven and take them out: 1396, in an inquisition.[2] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century and Merriam-Webster to the 14th century.[7][14]

Semantic evolution

By ?a1500 it could name any shovel, especially a fire shovel, a use now historical.[2] Printers used it from 1683 for a pole with a T-shaped crosspiece on which damp printed sheets were hung to dry.[2] Johnson (1755) described it as a broad thin board with a long handle used by bakers.[15] In Wright's dialect dictionary it is in general use in Scotland and England for the flat wooden shovel used to put bread and pies in and out of a brick oven.[16]

Timeline

  • 1396 – a baker's shovel.[2]
  • ?a1500 – a shovel, especially a fire shovel.[2]
  • 1683 – (printing) a pole for hanging up printed sheets.[2]
  • 1875 – the blade of an oar (rare, obsolete).[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A long-handled shovel with a broad flat blade, used to slide bread, pizzas and the like into and out of an oven.
  2. (printing, now rare) A pole with a crosspiece for hanging up freshly printed sheets.

peel3 tower

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
a1400 (c1303), Robert Mannyng's Handlyng Synne
Borrowed from
Anglo-Norman pel via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Latin pālus

Etymology

The tower is inherited from Middle English pel (also pele), borrowed from Anglo-Norman pel (“stake, palisade”) and pel (“stake, fence”) (modern pieu),[2][14][3][9] from Latin pālus (“stake”),[2][4][9] the source of pale "a stake".[4][9] In Anglo-Norman the word meant a stake by the late 12th century, a palisade by the early 14th and a peel tower by the late 14th.[2] Hoad thinks the tower sense is probably short for peel house (16th century).[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A stake: a1400, in a copy of Robert Mannyng's Handlyng Synne (c. 1303), a rare sense found only in Middle English.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

From ?a1400 it meant a fence of stakes or a stockaded enclosure, chiefly in Scotland.[2] About 1450, in Chaucer's House of Fame, it also meant a castle, especially a small one.[2][11] The sense that survives, a small fortified tower or house of the kind built in the 16th century in the border counties of England and Scotland, is recorded from 1726.[2][14] Hoad dates the small fortified dwelling on the Scottish Border to the 18th century.[9] Wright's dialect dictionary records it as a Border stronghold in Scotland, Northumberland and Cumberland, also in peel-castle, peel-house and peel-tower.[16]

Timeline

  • a1400 – a stake.[2]
  • ?a1400 – a palisade, a stockaded enclosure.[2]
  • c. 1450 – a castle, especially a small one (obsolete by 1765).[2]
  • 1726 – a small fortified tower on the English–Scottish border.[2][14]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A small fortified tower or house of a kind built in the 16th century near the border between England and Scotland; also called a peel tower.
  2. (historical) A palisade or stockaded enclosure.

Usage notes

The croquet verb peel, to send another player's ball through a hoop, has a separate source: it is named after Walter H. Peel, a croquet player of the 1860s.[3][2] A Scots peel "an equal, a match" is of unknown origin,[3][2] and Weekley also found the peel of salmon peel, a grilse, of unknown origin.[11] In the dialects of Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall a peel was a pillow, especially a lace-maker's;[16] Merriam-Webster traces that word to Old English pyle, the source of pillow.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  9. ^ a b c d e f Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  13. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  14. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  16. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Peel.” Etymologically, 22 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/peel. Accessed 23 Oct. 2026.

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