peart

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See also: Peart

English

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Etymology

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Related to peert.

Adjective

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peart (comparative pearter, superlative peartest)

  1. (UK, US, dialect) Lively; active.
    • 1586, William Warner, Albion's England, Booke VI, Chapter XXXI, 1810, The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Volume IV, page 579,
      There was a tricksie girle, I wot, // Albeit clad in gray, / As peart as bird, as straite as boult, // As fresh as flower in May.
    • 1856, Alice Carey, Married, not Mated; Or, How they lived at Woodside and Throckmorton Hall, page 109:
      I smiled; and she went on to say I looked a little more peart; maybe I would not be such a slow coach after all.
    • 1893, Lynde Palmer, A Question of Honour, page 88:
      " [] No young man could 'a' ben more peart and alive than that, Dotty."
    • 1979, Marguerite Noble, Filaree: A Novel of an American Life, published 1985, page 109:
      "Yore pa don't hold to card playin' but you needs to have quiet and rest. I'm pleased to see Annie's up to playin'. Baby looks a little more peart this mornin' too."

Derived terms

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Anagrams

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