We usually think of a “peak” as something sharp or strong, like the top of a mountain or a person’s best moment. So it might seem strange that “peaked,” especially when pronounced “PEAK-ed,” can describe someone who looks weak or unwell.
This use goes back to the verb “to peak,” which we know entered into in English in the 1400s, but we’re not sure where it came from. We do know that the earliest meaning of “peak” was “to slink” or “to creep.” That meaning is now rare.
Later on, “peaked” picked up another meaning, “to wander about dejected” or “to mope.” Most relevant to our purposes though, is that by the late 1500s, “to peak” had come to mean “to fail in health or spirits.”
Shakespeare used it in this line from Macbeth: “Shall he dwindle, peak, and pine.”
The phrase “peak and pine” subsequently solidified itself in English, where “pine” means “to suffer.” Here it is in a 1940 New York Times article: “Presently, one of the bullocks began to peak and pine. It grew more and more emaciated, physicians were in vain, and it died.”
By the early 1600s, “peaking” could be used as an adjective to refer to people who were “sick or thin or wasting.”
The first recorded use of “peaked,” pronounced “PEAK-ed,” was in 1804 in an issue of Transactions of the American Philosophical Society: “We say, in the United States, of a person whose face is contracted by illness, he looks peaked.” The adjective “peaky” also showed up in the 1800s and could mean “sickly” or “thin.”
To hear more about “peak” as well as its various homophones, listen to the audio above.
