Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. UK Und.; later use US black/gang, also pecks) food, often meat; a meal.

c.1566		Harman Caveat for Common Cursetours in Viles & Furnivall (1907) 86: Maunde of this morte what bene pecke is in her ken.
1592		Groundworke of Conny-catching A2: Pek, meate.
1608		Dekker Lanthorne and Candle-Light Ch. 1: Peck, meate.
1611		Middleton & Dekker Roaring Girle V i: A gage of ben rom-bouse [...] Is benar then a caster, / Peck, pennam, lap, or popler.
1637		Dekker Canters Dict. Eng. Villainies (8th edn) .
1641		R. Brome Jovial Crew II i: For all this bene Cribbing and Peck let us then, / Bowse a health to the Gentry Cofe of the Ken.
1674		Head Canting Academy (2nd edn) 4: As for Peck, that they can procure without Money.
1688		R. Holme Academy of Armory Ch. iii item 68c: Canting Terms used by Beggars, Vagabonds, Cheaters, Cripples and Bedlams. [...] Peck, Meat.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Codsounds, the Pith or Marrow in the Cod’s Back, esteem’d as choice Peck.
1700		N. Ward Rambling Rakes 6: We quitted the Market [...] and hasted to the Infallible Shop [...] Noted now for Nice-Peck.
1724		‘John Sheppard’s Last Epistle’ in Dly Jrnl (London) 16 Nov. 1: Pray send me some Peck and some Bub, / A Slat or a Board to the Needy.
1725		New Canting Dict. n.p.: peck, or peckage Meat.
1732		Mrs. Delany letter 30 Mar. Life and Corr. (1861) I 346: We went to supper, and had a profusion of peck and booze.
1741		Canting Academy, or the Pedlar’s-French Dict. 111: Victuals not fit to eat, Quer peck.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1791		‘Flash Lang.’ in Confessions of Thomas Mount 19: Victuals of any kind, [...] peck.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Times 29 Oct. 2/4: We must have a word of the poetry, just to put the lush and peck gentlemen out of countenance.
1834		‘A Rum-Un to Look At’ in Libertine’s Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) I 135: Oh I have got a moll, / And I calls her leary Poll, / She shares both my peck and my bed.
1840		Flash Mirror 4: The Bug Walk [...] This house is a pannum supply [...] if any gemman of an high order thinks fit to put his beak in, he can get a feeder of slap up peck for a kick.
1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 1 Jan. n.p.: We are in habit of taking our daily ‘peck’ at Weeks’ Excelsior Saloon, 83 Nassai st.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 107/1: What sot of ‘peck’ du they give you? Is it good?
1865		A.G. Vance ‘The Fair Girl Dress’d in Check’ 🎵 He politely did invite me down to Melton’s for a quiet peck / I gracefully declin’d.
1876		J. Greenwood Low-Life Deeps 309: We had had our peck.
1876		St Louis Globe-Democrat 19 Jan. n.p.: His ‘gripsack,’ which he had to ‘shove up at his uncle’s for peck’.
1890		‘’Arry on [...] the Glorious Twelfth’ in Punch 30 Aug. 97/2: Them Moors is the spots for cold Irish, and gives you the primest of pecks.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 57: Peck, food;‘peck and booze,’ meat and drink.
1912		A.G. Field Watch Yourself Go By 415: Not until someone asked him how it was he had been without food for a week did he learn that ‘peck’ in show-slang signified meals—eating.
1957		R. Finestone in Cressey & Ward Delinquency, Crime, and Social Process (1969) 790: Thus he used [...] ‘pecks’ for food.
1958		Hughes & Bontemps Book of Negro Folklore 486: pecks: Food. My girl lays some pecks!
1959		H. Salisbury Shook-Up Generation (1961) 151: Food is ‘pecks’.
1970		A. Young Snakes (1971) 129: ‘They keep food here too?’ ‘Oughta be some type of pecks.’.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].

2. an appetite.

1892

‘’Arry in ’Arrygate’ in Punch 24 Sept. 133/3: Still, the air ’ere’s as fresh as they make it, and gives yer a doose of a peck.

3. a business, a concern.

1903

T.W.H. Crosland ‘The White Man’s Burden’ in Five Notions 32: Take up the White Man’s burden, / Behold his daughter fair, / Her healthy English features, / Her pretty English hair; / Your sons she may not marry, / She is too proud a peck.