Meaning & use
pepper
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Meanings
noununcountable
A spice made from dried, ground peppercorns, used to add a hot, sharp taste to food.
Grammar: Uncountable when it means the spice: say 'some pepper', not 'a pepper'.
Patterns
- salt and pepper
- add pepper to something
- freshly ground pepper
Could you pass the salt and pepper?
She added a pinch of black pepper to the soup.
The recipe calls for freshly ground pepper.
nouncountable
A hollow, usually red, green, or yellow vegetable with a mild taste, eaten raw or cooked.
Grammar: Countable when it means the vegetable: one pepper, two peppers.
Patterns
- a red pepper
- bell pepper
- stuffed peppers
I bought a red pepper and a green pepper at the market.
Slice the peppers and add them to the salad.
We had stuffed peppers for dinner last night.
verbtransitive
To hit or scatter small things at someone or something many times quickly.
Grammar: Takes an object: pepper the food with salt; often used in the passive.
Patterns
- pepper something with something
- be peppered with questions
The children peppered the teacher with questions.
Bullets peppered the walls of the building.
He peppered his speech with jokes.
Word forms
| plural | peppers |
|---|---|
| third person singular | peppers |
| past tense | peppered |
| past participle | peppered |
| -ing form | peppering |
Common combinations
- salt and pepper
- The table always has salt and pepper on it.
- black pepper
- I like black pepper on my eggs.
- bell pepper
- A bell pepper is sweet and crunchy.
- pepper mill
- He turned the pepper mill over his pasta.
- pepper shaker
- The pepper shaker was empty.
Synonyms and how they differ
Word family
- peppery adjective
- Having a hot, sharp taste like pepper.
- peppercorn noun
- The dried berry that is ground to make pepper.
Commonly confused: pepper or chili?
pepper vs chili
Chili is a hot pepper, often used in spicy dishes; pepper can be mild (bell pepper) or the spice.
Practice
Choose the correct sentence:
Choose one answer.
When pepper means the spice, it is uncountable, so 'some pepper' is correct. 'A pepper' means one vegetable, which is not what you want for seasoning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “pepper”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.