• enPR: pēk, IPA: /piːk/

peak (plural peaks)

1. A point; the sharp end or top of anything that terminates in a point; as, the peak, or front, of a cap.
   • 2002, Joy of Cooking: All About Cookies ISBN 0743216806, page 29:

     A less risky method is to lift your whisk or beater to check the condition of the peaks of the egg whites; the foam should be just stiff enough to stand up in well-defined, unwavering peaks.

2. The highest value reached by some quantity in a time period.

   Synonyms: apex, pinnacle, Thesaurus:apex

   The stock market reached a peak in September 1929.

   • 2012 October 23, David Leonhardt, "," New York Times (retrieved 24 October 2012):

     By last year, family income was 8 percent lower than it had been 11 years earlier, at its peak in 2000, according to inflation-adjusted numbers from the Census Bureau.

3. (geography) The top, or one of the tops, of a hill, mountain, or range, ending in a point.

   Synonyms: summit, top

   They reached the peak after 8 hours of climbing.

4. (geography) The whole hill or mountain, especially when isolated.
   • 1898, Arnold Henry Savage Landor, In the Forbidden Land Chapter 62

     To the South we observed a large plain some ten miles wide, with snowy peaks rising on the farther side. In front was a hill projecting into the plain, on which stood a mani wall; and this latter discovery made me feel quite confident that I was on the high road to Lhassa.

5. (nautical) The upper aftermost corner of a fore-and-aft sail.

   peak-halyards

   peak-brails

6. (nautical) The narrow part of a vessel's bow, or the hold within it.
7. (nautical) The extremity of an anchor fluke; the bill.
8. (mathematics) A local maximum of a function, e.g. for sine waves, each point at which the value of y is at its maximum.

• Portuguese: ponta
• Russian: ко́нчик

• French: pic
• Italian: picco
• Portuguese: cume, pico
• Russian: пик
• Spanish: pico

• French: cime, sommet, pic
• German: Gipfel
• Italian: cima
• Portuguese: pico, cume, topo
• Russian: верши́на
• Spanish: cima

• German: Maximum
• Russian: пик

peak (peaks, present participle peaking; past and past participle peaked)

1. To reach a highest degree or maximum.

   Historians argue about when the Roman Empire began to peak and ultimately decay.

2. To rise or extend into a peak or point; to form, or appear as, a peak.

   • There peaketh up a mighty high mount.

3. (nautical, transitive) To raise the point of (a gaff) closer to perpendicular.

• culminate

• Spanish: culminar

peak

1. maximal, maximally quintessential or representative; constituting the culmination of
2. (MLE) Bad
3. (MLE) Unlucky; unfortunate

• (bad) hench; See also Thesaurus:bad
• (unlucky) See also Thesaurus:unlucky

peak (peaks, present participle peaking; past and past participle peaked)

1. (intransitive) To become sick or wan.
2. (intransitive) To acquire sharpness of figure or features; hence, to look thin or sickly.
   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene iii]:

     Dwindle, peak, and pine.

3. (intransitive) To pry; to peep slyly.

• peaky

peak (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of peag#English|peag (“wampum”)

1. Misspelling of pique

1. Surname