Peake

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. To glance out or look around quietly and secretively, often from a hidden place ; to grow thin, weak and sickly through grief, illness or longing
2. To peek slyly at something from concealment ; to decline gradually in health, becoming pale and wasted through worry or sorrow
3. Furtively to peer out from cover in order to see unseen ; to languish and waste away gradually, especially through sadness or sickness

Etymology: Before "peak" settled into its modern spelling, writers in early modern English often wrote "peake" for the same pointed top of a hill or mountain. The older form survives in the name of the Peak District in Derbyshire, though where that name comes from is still debated. The noun is probably related to Middle English "pike", meaning a sharp point, which also gave English the names of the spear-like weapon and the fish. The spelling persists as a family name, most famously in the novelist Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast books.