pease

• IPA^(key): /piːz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Homophone: peas
• Rhymes: -iːz

From Middle English pese (“pea”), from Old English pise (“pea”), from Late Latin pisa, variant of Latin pisum (“pea”), from Ancient Greek πίσον (píson), variant of πίσος (písos).

pease (plural peasen)

1. (archaic) Alternative form of pea (“common plant; its edible seed”)
   • c. 1760, “Pease Porridge Hot”:

     Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, […]

   • 1924, Arthur Machen [pseudonym; Arthur Llewellyn Jones], chapter IV, in The London Adventure or The Art of Wandering, London: Martin Secker, page 113:

     It was fiercely cold, but I was a good deal warmed when the lad who drove me, talking of the crops of the country, spoke of “the peasen.” Thank God! I said to myself, there is still some smack of old England left in the land.

pease

1. (archaic) plural of pea
   • 1770, C[harles] Varley, A New System of Husbandry. From Experiments Never Before Made Public. […], volume II, York: […] [F]or the Author, by N. Nickson, […], pages 274–275:

     The due proportion for any land (except it be a very light blowing ſand) is two beans for one pea; by which means, they will be (without doubt) a ſtanding crop, as the beans will be (as it were, a rodding for the peaſe; in this caſe they are aſſiſtants to each other; for as the peaſe are kept ſtanding, and form (as it were) an arch over the top of the bean, the circulating air is admitted round them to aſſiſt in feeding the corning part thereof.

     1766 and 1768 editions use peas.

   • 1777, James Anderson, Essays Relating to Agriculture and Rural Affairs, 2nd edition, volume II, Edinburgh: […] William Creech; and T[homas] Cadell, […], pages 336–337:

     Experience ſhows that the common pea, whether white or grey, cannot be reared to perfection in any field which has not been either naturally or artificially impregnated with ſome calcareous matter.—Hence it happens, that peaſe are rarely cultivated univerſally as a field crop, unleſs in thoſe parts of the country where either lime, of marle, or chalk abound. But, on the ſeacoaſt, where ſhell-fiſh are often catched in abundance, we meet with a few exceptions to this general rule. It is pretty remarkable, that a ſoil which could hardly have made one pea come to perfection, although richly manured with dung,—if it ſhall have been once limed, ſhall be capable of producing abundant crops of peaſe ever afterwards, if duly prepared in other reſpects.

   • 1821, [William Kitchiner], The Cook’s Oracle: Containing Receipts for Plain Cookery on the Most Economical Plan for Private Families: […], 3rd edition, London: […] A[rchibald] Constable & Co. […]; and Hurst, Robinson, & Co. […], page 255:

     Take a quart of Green Pease, (keep out half a pint of the youngest, boil them separately, and put them in the Soup when it is finished,) put them on in boiling water, boil them tender, and then pour off the water, and set it by to make the Soup with; put the pease into a mortar, and pound them to a mash. Then put them in two quarts of the water you boiled the pease in, stir all well together, let it boil up for about five minutes, and then rub it through a hair sieve or tammis; if the pease are good, it will be as thick and fine a vegetable soup as need be sent to Table.

• The original singular was pease (meaning “a pea”), and the plural was peasen. Because of the final [z]-sound, the singular then came to be reinterpreted as a plural form, leading to the backformation of a new singular pea.

• pease porridge
• pease pottage
• pease pudding
• split pease

From Anglo-Norman paiser, pesser et al., Old French paisier, aphetic form of apaisier (“to appease”). Probably also partly from aphetic use of appease.

pease (third-person singular simple present peases, present participle peasing, simple past and past participle peased)

1. (obsolete) To make peace between (conflicting people, states etc.); to reconcile.
2. (obsolete) To bring (a war, conflict) to an end.
3. (obsolete) To placate, appease (someone).
   • 1526, [William Tyndale, transl.], The Newe Testamẽt […] (Tyndale Bible), [Worms, Germany: Peter Schöffer], →OCLC, Matthew xxviij:

     And yf this come to the rulers eares, we wyll pease him, and make you safe.