peart

See also: Peart

English

Etymology

Related to peert.

Adjective

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

• peartly

Anagrams

• Petra, apert, apter, parte, pater, petar, petra, prate, preta, reapt, repat, retap, taper, trape, treap