The Collaborative International Dictionary
Peck \Peck\, v. i.
To make strokes with the beak, or with a pointed instrument.
--Carew.-
To pick up food with the beak; hence, to eat.
[The hen] went pecking by his side.
--Dryden.To peck at, to attack with petty and repeated blows; to carp at; to nag; to tease.
Usage examples of "to peck at".
He wanted to open his belly and strew his old guts on the rocks for carrion birds to peck at.
Hooked claws locked into his sound shoulder as Snowcloud gripped hold and began to peck at his head with an iron-sharp beak.
Thereon the Zulu sprang back with a wild shout, and, avoiding the sword cuts, began to peck at his foe with his terrible axe, till in a few seconds the man's fate overtook him and he fell with a clash heavily and quite dead upon the marble floor.
Despite the lack of support, the former sergeant had sent snipers forward to peck at the Boman line.
If they made the bead taste bitter, by dipping it in alcohol, or quinine, or the pungent methylanthranilate, then the chick would peck once, show disgust by shaking its head vigorously and wiping its beak on the floor of its pen, and then back away, refusing to peck at a similar but dry bead offered any time from a few seconds to a few days subsequently.
I looked away from her, totally mystified as to why she wished to peck at me like this.
She stretched her lips at him and began to peck at the adding machine again.