pepper
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A spice prepared from the fermented, dried, unripe berries of this plant.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
pehperSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpɛpɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
A spice prepared from the fermented, dried, unripe berries of this plant.
UKUSIreland and Canada
A fruit of the capsicum plant: red, green, yellow or white, hollow and containing seeds, and in a wide range of mild (sweet, nonspicy) to hot (spicy) varieties.
verb
transitive
To add pepper to.
transitive
To cover with lots of (something made up of small things).
transitive
To add (something) at frequent intervals.
transitive
To strike with something made up of small particles.
transitiveslang
To beat or thrash.
transitiveslang
To write accents or disambiguating marks in script.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A spice prepared from the fermented, dried, unripe berries of this plant.
Used this way, pepper is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- peppercorn , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A mill for grinding pepper.
A mill for grinding pepper.
A soup made with vegetables and tripe and seasoned with peppercorns.
North American herb with pungent scaly or toothed roots.
For venison: brown sauce with sauteed vegetables and trimmings and marinade and plenty of pepper.
A shaker with a perforated top for sprinkling ground pepper.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: spice prepared from the fermented or dried
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.