pepper

(uncountable) A spice prepared from the fermented, dried, unripe berries of this plant.

(UK, US, Ireland and Canada) A fruit of the capsicum plant: red, green, yellow or white, hollow and containing seeds, and in very spicy and mild varieties.

Some ballparks have signs saying "No pepper games".

(baseball) A game used by baseball players to warm up where fielders standing close to a batter rapidly return the batted ball to be hit again

(cryptography) A randomly-generated value that is added to another value (such as a password) prior to hashing. Unlike a salt, a new one is generated for each value and it is held separately from the value.

He means to snatch the laurels from his brow, / At all his boasted pluck and prowess smile, / And give him pepper in superior style.

1906, Henry Downes Miles, Pugilistica, page 61:

[T]he Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and finished.

1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:

Chew beef like breakfast (Yum)
Two shanks, get 'round in seconds (Two)
Be feeding my area, peppers

2017 January 17, “Kennington Where It Started”, Biz of Harlem Spartans (lyrics), 0:28:

Number plates already hot, and plus we've got like three peppers

2023 June 18, “100mph Freestyle x3”, Clavish (lyrics), 3:24:

en-noun

pepper (countable and uncountable, plural peppers)

Tok Pisin: pepa

→ Hawaiian: pepa

→ Marshallese: pepa

From Middle English peper, piper, from Old English piper, from Proto-West Germanic *pipar, from Latin piper, from an Indo-Aryan source; compare Sanskrit पिप्पलि (pippali, “long pepper”). The name was given to the capsicum fruit because of its unusual spicy taste, not unlike the Old World spice. Cognate with Scots pepar, Saterland Frisian Pieper, West Frisian piper, Dutch peper, German Low German Peper, German Pfeffer, Danish peber, Swedish peppar, Icelandic pipar. Doublet of falafel and peepul.


pepper

(transitive) To strike with something made up of small particles.

After the hailstorm, the beach was peppered with holes.

(transitive) To cover with lots of (something made up of small things).

He liked to pepper long words throughout his conversation.

(transitive) To add (something) at frequent intervals.

I am pepperd for this world, I am sped yfaith, he hath made wormes meate of me

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

(transitive, MLE, slang) To shoot (upon) with the dotty.

(transitive, slang) To write accents or disambiguating marks in script.

en-verb

pepper (third-person singular simple present peppers, present participle peppering, simple past and past participle peppered)

peppers (present singular third-person)
peppering (participle present)
peppered (participle past)
peppered (past)