The Collaborative International Dictionary
Peat \Peat\, n. [Prob. for beat, prop., material used to make the fire burn better, fr. AS. b?tan to better, mend (a fire), b?t advantage. See Better, Boot advantage.] A substance of vegetable origin, consisting of roots and fibers, moss, etc., in various stages of decomposition, and found, as a kind of turf or bog, usually in low situations, where it is always more or less saturated with water. It is often dried and used for fuel. Peat bog, a bog containing peat; also, peat as it occurs in such places; peat moss. Peat moss.
The plants which, when decomposed, become peat.
A fen producing peat.
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(Bot.) Moss of the genus Sphagnum, which often grows abundantly in boggy or peaty places.
Peat reek, the reek or smoke of peat; hence, also, the peculiar flavor given to whisky by being distilled with peat as fuel. [Scot.]
WordNet
n. wet spongy ground of decomposing vegetation; has poorer drainage than a swamp; soil is unfit for cultivation but can be cut and dried and used for fuel [syn: bog]
Usage examples of "peat bog".
The fog was even thicker than it had been in the graveyard of trees by the peat bog, casting the place in a moist and perpetual gloom.
The forest pressed too close and the smell of the peat bog was overwhelming.
The creature dropped on the front steps of the wide porch, a tangled heap of old bones held together with dried bits of leathery skin and covered with rotten clothing and straggling hairmuch like a corpse removed from a peat bog.
Her mouth tasted as if she'd spent the night dining on a peat bog, and her clothes were coated with morning dew.
Gripped by the immediacy of the situation, Qwilleran forgot to mention his peat bog theory.
Farther inland a dozen families lived in huts of piled stone beside a peat bog.