Meaning & use
pea
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Meanings
nouncountable
A small, round green seed eaten as a vegetable, or the pod plant that produces it.
Grammar: Usually plural when eaten: peas; singular for one seed.
Patterns
- a bowl of peas
- shell peas
She served roast chicken with peas and carrots.
He picked fresh peas from the garden.
Add a handful of frozen peas to the soup.
nouncountablebiology
A climbing plant that produces pods holding round seeds, grown as a crop.
Grammar: Used in farming and gardening, often as the pea plant.
Patterns
- grow peas
- a pea plant
The pea plants climbed the fence in early summer.
Farmers planted peas in the spring.
Mendel studied pea plants to learn about inheritance.
Word forms
| plural | peas |
|---|
Common combinations
- green peas
- A bowl of green peas sat beside the rice.
- frozen peas
- He pressed a bag of frozen peas on his bruised knee.
- split peas
- Split peas are used to make thick soup.
- pea soup
- Pea soup is a warming dish in winter.
- two peas in a pod
- The twins are like two peas in a pod.
- sweet pea
- The sweet pea has scented flowers.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- peas noun
- plural form
- peapod noun
- the pod in which peas grow
- peashooter noun
- a small tube for blowing peas or other tiny objects
- pea-green adjective
- having a bright yellowish green color
Commonly confused: pea or pee? pea or pi?
pea vs pee
Pee is an informal word for urinate and shares the sound of the letter P, so take care with spelling.
pea vs pi
Pi is the math symbol, and it is pronounced like pie, not like pea.
Practice
If two people are 'like two peas in a pod', what are they?
Choose one answer.
The idiom compares two people to identical peas in one pod, meaning they are extremely alike. The other options mean the opposite or something else.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pea”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.