What's the difference between peck and pierce?

Peck


Definition:

  • (n.) The fourth part of a bushel; a dry measure of eight quarts; as, a peck of wheat.
  • (n.) A great deal; a large or excessive quantity.
  • (v.) To strike with the beak; to thrust the beak into; as, a bird pecks a tree.
  • (v.) Hence: To strike, pick, thrust against, or dig into, with a pointed instrument; especially, to strike, pick, etc., with repeated quick movements.
  • (v.) To seize and pick up with the beak, or as with the beak; to bite; to eat; -- often with up.
  • (v.) To make, by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument; as, to peck a hole in a tree.
  • (v. i.) To make strokes with the beak, or with a pointed instrument.
  • (v. i.) To pick up food with the beak; hence, to eat.
  • (n.) A quick, sharp stroke, as with the beak of a bird or a pointed instrument.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The first was a passive avoidance task in which the chicks were allowed to peck at a green training stimulus (a small light-emitting diode, LED) coated in the bitter liquid, methylanthranilate, giving rise to a strong disgust response and consequent avoidance of the green stimulus.
  • (2) The rate of key pecking in a component was negatively related to the proportion of reinforcers from the alternative (variable-time) source.
  • (3) No pigeon attacked the target; one pecked the shockplug on its back.
  • (4) This 'object' function is the summation of the food uptake by one second of pecking and one second of filter feeding.
  • (5) So strong is this image of Peck that his few honourable attempts at comedy, and his less successful portrayals of the baddie, are often forgotten.
  • (6) Hens socially dominant in three bird pens had higher liver fat accumulation than hens lower on the peck order but liver fat accumulation for the dominant hens still averaged less than hens housed either two or one per cage.
  • (7) He tweeted on Wednesday: “I did not pull out of presenting the Rory Peck Awards - they dropped me.” The awards were set up in 1995 in memory of freelance cameraman Rory Peck, who was killed in Moscow in 1993.
  • (8) Pigeons were trained to peck a key on a multi FR30-FI3' schedule.
  • (9) Five pigeons pecked for food reinforcers on a concurrent variable-interval one-minute, variable-interval four-minute schedule.
  • (10) Day-old chicks peck when offered a bright bead; if the bead is coated with the bitter-tasting methylanthranilate (M) they avoid it thereafter.
  • (11) "You also said we haven't ended up with local radio at the bottom of the pecking order.
  • (12) The drug initially produced a marked decrease in aggressive behavior but had little or no effect on key pecking.
  • (13) The results showed that pigeons alternate when frequency-dependent selection is applied to single pecks because alternation is an easy-to-learn stable pattern that satisfies the frequency-dependent condition.
  • (14) At 6ft 3in tall, the lanky Peck was a pillar of moral rectitude standing up for decency and tolerance.
  • (15) The effects of three amphetamine analogs were assessed in pigeons key pecking under a multiple 3-min fixed-interval (FI), 30 response fixed-ratio (FR) schedule of food presentation.
  • (16) Subsequently, over three phases, additions were made during the random-interval 1-minute component as follows: pecks during the component occasionally were punished by timeout presentation (Phase 1), timeouts were presented independently of responding during the component (Phase 2), pecks during the component occasionally were punished by electric-shock presentation (Phase 3).
  • (17) Trade ministers, much lower down the pecking order, are more sanguine.
  • (18) Genetic stock by age and beak treatment by age interactions were present for hen-housed production and egg mass, and the interactions appeared to result primarily from increased mortality from cannibalistic pecking with increased age.
  • (19) In the swinging 1960s, Peck's sober style seemed a little out of place, though he appeared in a couple of flashy Hitchcockian thrillers, Mirage (1965) and Arabesque (1966), and adapted to the new Hollywood as best he could, looking rather bothered as the father of a demon in The Omen (1976).
  • (20) Pigeons' pecks were conditioned with food reinforcement.

Pierce


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To thrust into, penetrate, or transfix, with a pointed instrument.
  • (v. t.) To penetrate; to enter; to force a way into or through; to pass into or through; as, to pierce the enemy's line; a shot pierced the ship.
  • (v. t.) Fig.: To penetrate; to affect deeply; as, to pierce a mystery.
  • (v. i.) To enter; to penetrate; to make a way into or through something, as a pointed instrument does; -- used literally and figuratively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) At pH 7.0, reduction is complete after 6 to 10 h. These results together with an earlier study concerning the positions of the two most readily reduced bonds (Cornell J.S., and Pierce, J.G.
  • (2) Cook, who has postbox-red hair and a painful-looking piercing in his lower lip, was now on stage in discussion with four fellow YouTubers, all in their early 20s.
  • (3) Meanwhile the Brooklyn Nets, who have been dealing with nothing but bad news since the start of the regular season, will be without Paul Pierce for 2-4 weeks, also due to a right hand fracture.
  • (4) After properly fixing the vas deferens with a ring clamp, the surgeon pierces the scrotal skin, vas sheath, and vas deferens in the midline with a curved dissecting clamp held at a 45 degree angle from horizontal.
  • (5) The dorsal interosseous muscles gave off tendons which pierced the transverse laminae or passed deep to the transverse laminae, and attached to the bases of the proximal phalanges.
  • (6) Four patients received a subclavian intraaortic balloon pump, two were supported with a Novacor left ventricular assist system, three patients received Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist devices, and one patient received a Jarvik 7 total artificial heart.
  • (7) Lisbeth Salander is a violent and emotionally uncommunicative tattooed and much-pierced goth who grew up in care, and has had serious mental health issues.
  • (8) Ear-piercing techniques include needles, safety pins, sharpened studs, and self-piercing kits.
  • (9) The price G4S is paying amounts to 8.5 times of top-line earnings - "by no means cheap," said Seymour Pierce analyst Kevin Lapwood.
  • (10) But the character – compounded of piercing sanity and existential despair, infinite hesitation and impulsive action, self-laceration and observant irony – is so multi-faceted, it is bound to coincide at some point with an actor’s particular gifts.
  • (11) This paper draws attention to tool marks in the area of pierced rib cartilage and considers the possibilities of their analysis.
  • (12) Fourteen patients were supported with a Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist device (left ventricular assist in seven, right ventricular assist in three, both in four); nine were supported with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, two with a Medtronic centrifugal left ventricular assist pump, one with biventricular Biomedicus pumps, and one with a Novacor left ventricular assist system.
  • (13) A scanning electron microscope (SEM) study of the mouthparts of Psoroptes cuniculi from rabbits and P. ovis from sheep established that they are identical in morphology and are adapted for surface feeding rather than piercing the epidermis.
  • (14) The footage beamed back from the liberated districts of Ramadi is grim: a ghost town littered with debris and smashed concrete, destroyed storefronts, plumes of smoke, the sound of gunfire piercing the air as Iraqi soldiers speak on camera.
  • (15) We stress the need for strict enforcement of correct sterilization procedures whenever needles are used to pierce skin.
  • (16) By stepping back from some of the more radical solutions suggested before the election – such as the complete separation of high street banks from "casino" investment banks proposed by business secretary Vince Cable – the commission left the banks "secretly quite pleased", according to Bruce Packard, banks analyst at Seymour Pierce.
  • (17) In 2013, actor Pierce Brosnan’s daughter, Charlotte, died from ovarian cancer.
  • (18) The piercing intelligence-wise in terms of humans has been very difficult all along."
  • (19) The passage through Congress of legislation such as the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act , which reduced the racially significant disparity between punishments for crack and powder cocaine, and the Death in Custody Act , which introduces a federal record of deaths in police custody, have shown that incarceration – and perhaps incarceration alone – is able to pierce through the partisan gridlock of Washington.
  • (20) Benteke and the tireless Andreas Weimann take the plaudits for their four passes that pierced the Liverpool defence and saw the Austrian forward sweep home Benteke's exquisite back-heel.