peel

PEEL, verb transitive [Latin pilo, to pull off hair and to pillage; pilus, the hair.] 1. To strip off skin, bark or rind without a cutting instrument; to strip by drawing or tearing off the skin; to bark; to flay; to decorticate. When a knife is used, we call it paring. Thus we say, to peel a tree, to peel an orange; but we say, to pare an apple to pare land. 2. In a general sense, to remove the skin, bark or rind, even with an instrument. 3. To strip; to plunder; to pillage; as, to peel a province or conquered people. PEEL, noun [Latin pellis.] The skin or rind of any thing; as the peel of an orange. PEEL, noun [Latin pala; pello; Eng. shovel, from shove; or from spreading.] A kind of wooden shovel used by bakers, with a broad palm and long handle; hence, in popular use in America, any large fire-shovel.