Pete

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Spongy brown material formed from decayed vegetation in waterlogged ground, often dried and burned as fuel ; to gradually fade and dwindle away until nothing remains
2. Partly decomposed plant matter found in bogs that is dried and burned for heat ; to slowly diminish and fall away until it finally disappears
3. A soft, dark fuel made of compressed moss and plant remains found in marshes ; to tail off little by little until nothing is left

Etymology: In the 18th century, thieves' cant used "peter" for a portmanteau, the leather trunk a traveller carried. The Canting Academy recorded the spelling "peeter" with that meaning, and the sense spread through Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The Oxford English Dictionary suggests a link to St Peter, keeper of the keys to heaven, but this remains a guess. Another theory connects the word to saltpetre, potassium nitrate, the key ingredient in gunpowder. It may come from Old French "salpetre", from Medieval Latin "sal petrae", meaning "salt of stone", with the first element altered under the influence of "salt". A third suggestion, from French "péter" meaning "to break wind", is less convincing. The slang sense for the penis appears in the United States in 1902. It probably took its form from the shared initial "pe-", joining other men's names used as slang for the same body part, such as dick, willy and johnson.