peter

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpiːtə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpitɚ/, /ˈpiɾɚ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːtə(ɹ)
• Homophone: pita (non-rhotic accents), Peter
• Hyphenation: pe‧ter

US, 1902, presumably from shared initial pe-.[1] Compare the use of other men’s names as a slang term for the penis, e.g., dick, willy, John Thomas, etc.

peter (plural peters)

1. (slang) The penis.
   • 1997: Shelby Scates, Warren G. Magnuson and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century America

     You smile, act polite, shake their hands, then cut off their peters and put them in your pocket.” “Yes, Mr. President,” answered O'Brien.

   • 1998: Michael Robert Gorman, The Empress Is a Man: Stories from the Life of Jose Sarria

     ... and you were there, and they acted like you weren't even born yet?' "I'd say, 'Yes, their memories are as long as their peters.'"

   • 2002: Celia H Miles, Mattie's Girl: An Appalachian Childhood

     “It's to put on their peters when they don't want to make babies,” she said.

peter (plural peters)

1. (UK, slang) A safe.

   Synonym: pete

   • 1963, Kenneth Ullyett, Crime out of Hand (page 109)

     It used to be simple to 'crack a peter'. Safe-breaking (blowing or cracking a 'peter') in the past three or four years shows that the expert cracksman knows his job.

• peterman

1812, US miners’ slang, Unknown.[1] Various speculative etymologies have been suggested.[2][3][4][5] One suggestion is that it comes from peter being an abbreviation of saltpeter, the key ingredient in gunpowder – when a mine was exhausted, it was “petered”. Other derivations are from St. Peter (from sense of “rock”), or French péter (“to fart”).

peter (third-person singular simple present peters, present participle petering, simple past and past participle petered)

1. (most often used in the phrase peter out) To dwindle; to trail off; to diminish to nothing.
   • 2014 August 23, Neil Hegarty, “Hidden City: Adventures and Explorations in Dublin by Karl Whitney, review: 'a necessary corrective' [print version: Re-Joycing in Dublin, p. R25]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎:

     Whitney is absorbed especially by Dublin's unglamorous interstitial zones: the new housing estates and labyrinths of roads, watercourses and railways where the city peters into its commuter belt.

   • 2021, Helen Fisher, Faye, Faraway (page 241)

     My words petered away.

Originally used independently, but today most often in the derived phrase peter out.

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

peter (third-person singular simple present peters, present participle petering, simple past and past participle petered)

1. (card games, intransitive) Synonym of blue peter

peter (plural peters)

1. (UK, prison slang) A prison cell.
   • 1955, Rupert Croft-Cooke, The Verdict of You All (page 82)

     […] the ceremony of 'slopping out', breakfast, across to the main library from nine till half-past eleven, back to my peter for the mid-day meal and two hours' break, then the library again till five o'clock when tea was brought round and the cell door locked for the night.

• Peret, Petre, Prete, peert, petre, repet.

From Middle Dutch peter, from petrijn, from Latin patrīnus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈpeː.tər/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: pe‧ter
• Rhymes: -eːtər

peter m (plural peters, feminine meter)

1. A godfather.

   Synonym: peetoom

• Negerhollands: pepee