peek / pēk/ • v. [intr.] look quickly, typically in a furtive manner: faces peeked from behind the curtains. ∎ fig. protrude slightly so as to be just visible: his socks were so full of holes his toes peeked through.• n. 1. a quick and typically furtive look: a peek through the window showed that the taxi had arrived.2. (usu. PEEK) Comput. a statement or function in BASIC for reading the contents of a specified memory location. Compare with poke¹ (sense 3).

peek To examine the contents of an absolute memory location from a high-level language, usually by means of a function of this name whose argument is the address in question. Compare poke.

peek peer, peep. XVI. Early mod. pe(e)ke, preceded by rare ME. pike; parallel to kike, keek (XIV, now Sc. and dial.), which has LG. cogns.
Also peek-bo! (XVI), superseded by peep-bo!