peer

peer — verb

1. to look very carefully because something is hard to see clearly.

1.verbintransitiveC2
Definition

to look very carefully because something is hard to see clearly.

Example

Maya peered through the bus window, trying to read the street sign.

peer through + opening

In the fog, fishermen peered across the water for the missing boat.

concrete search scene in poor visibility

Common collocations
  • peer into the dark
  • peer through the window
  • peer at the screen
  • peer from behind
Synonyms
  • squint

    stresses narrowing the eyes, not just careful looking

  • stare

    suggests a fixed, often longer look, not difficulty seeing

  • peek

    usually means a quick or secret look

Grammar Patterns

peer into + place

peer through + opening

peer at + thing

Usage Note

Usually followed by into, through, or at. It often suggests darkness, distance, fog, or some other visual difficulty, rather than an ordinary casual look.

Common Mistakes

I peered the photo on my phone.
I looked at the photo on my phone.
'peer' is normally intransitive and usually needs a preposition such as 'at' or 'into'.

peer — noun

Word family

  • peerage
    nounC2
  • peerless
    adjectiveC2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

These words overlap, but they point to different kinds of similarity. A 'peer' is someone at your own level inside the same group, so it fits school, work, sport, and social settings: 'students learning from peers'. 'Equal' is broader and often more abstract, stressing the same value, rights, or rank rather than group membership. A 'counterpart' is usually a matching person in another company, team, or country, such as your counterpart in the Tokyo office. 'Colleague' is narrower in one way and wider in another: it is only for work, but it does not always imply equal status. Compare: 'The young lawyer impressed her peers,' 'Both partners are equals in the firm,' and 'She emailed her counterpart in Seoul.'

peer ↗equal ↗counterpart ↗colleague ↗

Etymology

LatinAnglo-FrenchMiddle EnglishEnglish

Modern English 'peer' brings together two older words with different histories. The noun came into Middle English from Anglo-French 'per', meaning 'equal', and that in turn goes back to Latin 'par'. From the idea of people being equal in rank, English later developed the British title sense, since members of the peerage were treated as each other's equals. The verb is from a different line: it grew out of a Middle English verb for looking narrowly, and its form was probably shaped by 'appear'. That is why the noun and verb look identical today even though they did not start from the same root.