peely

From peel +‎ -y.

• IPA^(key): /piːli/
• Rhymes: -iːli
• Homophone: peelie

peely (comparative more peely, superlative most peely)

1. Tending to peel.
   • 1954 June, “Angel Skin by Pond’s”, in Ladies’ Home Journal, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Curtis Publishing Company, page 106, column 1:

     Rough, “peely” arms, shoulders, legs—See Angel Skin soothe, soften, cool sensitive wind-and-sun irritated skin. Rough flakiness dissolves off.

   • 1987, Roy Lancaster, Garden Plants for Connoisseurs, Unwin Hyman, →ISBN, page 10:

     It is paper-thin and when old, peels away to reveal the richer-coloured young bark beneath. It is particularly peely on the branches especially at their junctions with the main stem where it often collects in dense, loose bunches.

   • 1987 November/December, P. Poore, “Ad Ethics”, in The Old-House Journal: 1987 Yearbook, Brooklyn, N.Y.: The Old-House Journal Corporation, published 1988, page 4, column 2:

     No, PVC lattice won’t age like wood. Would I use it? Honestly, probably not, because I like peely paint and rotted edges. But I know not everybody is quite so romantic, and in this case I think little harm is done.

   • 1988, Trevor Millum, Warning: Too Much Schooling Can Damage Your Health, Leeds: E. J. Arnold & Son Ltd., →ISBN, page 93:

     In the swarmy swimming summer / Off the ageing garden shed / I picked the peely paint / And filled in all the gaps / With fluorescent day-glo felt-tip red! / And then got sent to bed! / (It wasn’t to everybody’s taste)

   • 1991, Roy M. Wallack, The Traveling Cyclist: 20 Five-Star Cycling Vacations, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 214:

     Machine-gun-toting soldiers eyed us suspiciously from barricades and peely-paint-covered guard shacks.

   • 1994, Robert Rankin, The Greatest Show Off Earth, London: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 65:

     The deck was all salt-bleached, pocked and barnacled. Rust around the cabin doors. Faded canvas on the lifeboats. Peely paint on the rows of steamer chairs.

   • 1997, Joanna Rose, Little Miss Strange, Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, →ISBN, page 92:

     the painted front of Someone’s Beloved Threads was all peely paint and old wood showing through. The sun at the top of the door was losing its sunface around the edges. “Erico,” I said. “I think you should paint again, on the doorway part.”

   • 1998, Jay Stailey, Think Rather of Zebra: Dealing with Aspects of Poverty Through Story, Highlands, Tex.: aha! Process, Inc., →ISBN, page 239:

     But she did strike up a relationship with a widow woman who lived in a tumble-down, peely paint, wood-frame shack down by the creek past the railroad track.

   • 1999, Sally Clark, House Beautiful: Bathrooms, New York, N.Y.: Hearst Books, →ISBN, page 57:

     A peely-paint old porch chair and a vintage clock are other relics that seem to belie the advance of time.

   • 1999, Anouchka Grose Forrester, Ringing for You: A Love Story with Interruptions, New York, N.Y.: Scribner, →ISBN, page 192:

     It was really badly decorated – all peely patterned wallpaper and threadbare furniture.

   • 1999 April 15, Rose Bennett Gilbert, “Bring The Outdoors Inside By Cultivating Garden Decor”, in The Republican, Oakland, Md., section “Project Home”, page 17:

     What you’ll see are flowers, flowers everywhere, plus trellis and picket fence patterns, natural stone floors, wicker and wrought iron furniture, complete with peely paint or a patina of rust.

   • 1999 December, “A Special Section for the Child at Heart”, in Los Angeles, volume 44, number 12, Los Angeles, Calif., section “Auntie Barbara’s Kids”, page 112:

     The replicated cribs, painted lamps, rocking chairs and dollhouses look straight out of grandma’s attic. Everything, however, including the peely mix-and-match wallpaper, is just made to appear old—even the chenille hangars, pillows and cuddly teddy bears.

   • 2004, Rebecca Bailey, The Only Road There Is, Huntsville, Tex.: Texas Review Press, →ISBN, page 61:

     Though I pull the panels back and feel the wall very carefully, I don’t notice anything except a peely place in the wallpaper. I peel it some more, but underneath is merely another pattern of wallpaper.

   • 2004, Jemma Harvey, Wishful Thinking, London: Arrow Books, published 2005, →ISBN, page 290:

     ‘He was living in this crummy little flat,’ Lin said. ‘Peely wallpaper, and brown stains in the bath. […]’

   • 2005, Tammi Leader Fuller, “The Big C”, in Dish & Tell: Life, Love, and Secrets, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow, →ISBN, section 5 (Going to Health in a Handbasket), page 180:

     The peely thing was still there, but I had eventually stopped picking at it, and it didn’t bother me much anymore. New, uninvited additions to my face were visiting more frequently . . . another age spot wasn’t the end of the world. Then I got the call. “Ms. Fuller, um, we, um, got your biopsy back and it’s um, skin cancer.”

   • 2014, Maggie Brogden [pseudonym; Irene Thomas], Spittin’ Grits, Adams Basin, N.Y.: The Wild Rose Press, Inc., →ISBN:

     While I waited for her to finish chewing, I propped my elbows on the little kitchen table and took a slow gander around at peely wall paper^[sic] some ancestral idiot had glued over bead board walls, the wallpaper in turn filmed with decades of soot and grease.

   • 2016, Susie Day, The Secrets of Billie Bright, London: Puffin, →ISBN, page 23:

     Then Michael slotted his key into the lock of their peely-paint blue front door, smushed her into the wall and raced up the stairs ahead of her to snag the good armchair, cackling triumphantly all the way.

   • 2017, Nichola Scurry, With the Music, Fluffy Dog, →ISBN:

     I stand outside, looking at our house. The paint is peely and the roof isn’t straight.

   • 2018 February 21, Alle Connell, “I Tried Expensive Vs. Cheap Red Nail Polish — And The Winner Is Clear”, in CafeMom‎, archived from the original on 2023-10-06:

     As someone with breakable, peely nails, I stan HARD for the entire Color Therapy collection — it helps my otherwise fragile nails grow long and strong.

   • 2022, David Sanchez, All Day Is A Long Time, London: Sceptre, →ISBN:

     Inside it was all peely wallpaper and fast-food garbage.

2. Resembling or characteristic of a peel.
   • 1876 January 1, “Transpontine Drama”, in Once a Week, fourth series, volume III, London: […] [T]he Offices, […], page 215, column 1:

     Nut-cracking goes on in a perfect fusillade, and oranges are peeled to an extent that sends a Covent Garden Market fragrance through the house, swifter than fall the peely flakes from the gallery above.

   • 1963, Food Technology, volume 17, page 993, column 2:

     The fundamental impression to be gained from tasting comminuted products is that they taste “peely” and have an aroma that is associated more with the peel than the juice.

   • 1964, Food Engineering, volume 36:

     Here, the flavor researcher runs into an imitation-creating problem involving two distinct grape flavors – the winey character of European varieties and the peely note of the Concord.

   • 1986, Adweek, volume 36, page 24:

     Cell Beverages, a 15% juice product that incorporates whole-juice cells that make this beverage “more pleasant than peely type products.”

   • 1989, Jurgen Gothe, “Three-Star Restaurants”, in First Rate: Jurgen Gothe’s Favourite Vancouver Restaurants, Vancouver, B.C.: Brighouse Press, →ISBN, page 211:

     That time was Italian: mostly lasagna, spaghetti with meatballs, spumoni ice cream for dessert. What are these little green peely things in there?

   • 1992, James Beverly Redd, Donald Lee Hendrix, Charles Marion Hendrix, Quality Control Manual for Citrus Processing Plants, volume 2, AgScience, →ISBN, page 199:

     Furthermore, carefully balancing the cold-pressed oil components with respect to their essence oil components is essential in providing a juice flavor that is not too “peely” or “flowery”.

   • 1998, Agriculture & Industry Survey, volume 8, Vadamalai Media, page 47, column 1:

     Flavour profiles: Vanilla baker’s delite - typically creamy, candy type. Orange baker’s delite - Very juicy, peely type with fruity undertones.

   • 1998, W. M. Mathew, Keiller’s of Dundee: The Rise of the Marmalade Dynasty, 1800-1879, Abertay Historical Society, →ISBN, page 7:

     […] today, people visualise not some item made from damsons or quinces, or some sticky beaten mass of boiled sugar and orange, but the peely, golden conserve, easy to spread and sweetly astringent to the taste, that the Keiller family laboured hard to promote.

   • 2002, Traci DePree, A Can of Peas, Colorado Springs, Colo.: WaterBrook Press, published 2007, →ISBN, page 199:

     She held up a tomato with a peely skin and neatly slipped the skin off in one piece and then squeezed the extra juice into an empty ice-cream bucket.

   • 2008, Dolf De Rovira, Sr., Dictionary of Flavors, 2nd edition, Wiley-Blackwell, →ISBN, page 535, column 1:

     Peely – Usually referring to citrus, peely means aldehydic. Citral is the peely note found in lemon, and decanal and other aldehydes contribute to the peely note of orange.

   • 2011, Regula Naef, “Minor Components in Extracts of Citrus Fruits”, in Giovanni Dugo, Luigi Mondello, editors, Citrus Oils: Composition, Advanced Analytical Techniques, Contaminants, and Biological Activity (Medicinal and Aromatic Plants — Industrial Profiles), Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN, page 469:

     (4Z)-4-Nonenal and (6E)-6-nonenal are minor components of yuzu only (Miyazawa et al., 2009), and have never been detected in oils of other Citrus species. (6E)-6-nonenal, with its powerful peely, citrusy, and albedo-like odor, is a key ingredient of the yuzu aroma. (2E,6Z)-2,6-nonadienal, reminiscent of cucumbers, was described in clementines by Chisholm et al. (2003).

   • 2014, Douglas Deur, Pacific Northwest Foraging: 120 Wild and Flavorful Edibles from Alaska Blueberries to Wild Hazelnuts, Timber Press, Inc., →ISBN:

     Paper birch (Betula papyrifera) is found in the colder northern and interior portions of the Pacific Northwest, with its white peely-papery bark, sharply pointed leaves, and dense short catkins.

   • 2016, Fleur Hitchcock, Bus Stop Baby, London: Piccadilly Press, →ISBN:

     I stand by the Rayburn, holding the baby, gazing into its folded face. The eyes are closed, and there seems to be a crazy amount of extra skin around them. It looks incredibly old rather than incredibly young. Tiny peely flakes cover its forehead and nose, and peeking out from Eden’s jacket are a few spare black hairs.

   • 2018, Sophie Davodeau, Christel Adam, “Quantitative Flavour Profiling”, in Sarah E. Kemp, Joanne Hort, Tracey Hollowood, editors, Descriptive Analysis in Sensory Evaluation, Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley-Blackwell, →ISBN, section 2 (Techniques), page 359:

     [“Descriptor name”:] Lemon-fresh [“Descriptor definition”:] Peely, juicy aroma associated with fresh squeezed yellow lemon

   • 2018, Sabrina Kotter-Seel, Sensorial and Analytical Profiling of Orange Juice and Apple Juice: Development and Validation of Shelf-Life Prediction Models, Munich: Herbert Utz Verlag, →ISBN, page 29:

     [“Descriptor”:] peely/waxy [“Sensorial Definition”:] aroma associated with the peel of orange fruits (orange coloured outer layer)

   • 2019, M. Selvamuthukumaran, Yashwant Pathak, editors, Flavors for Nutraceutical and Functional Foods, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press, →ISBN:

     Monoterpene aldehydes / Neral / Odor: Sweet citrus lemon peely / Taste: Lemon-like

   • 2019, Andries G. S. Gous, Valérie L. Almli, Vinet Coetzee, Henrietta L. de Kock, “Effects of Varying the Color, Aroma, Bitter, and Sweet Levels of a Grapefruit-Like Model Beverage on the Sensory Properties and Liking of the Consumer”, in Beverly J. Tepper, Iole Tomassini Barbarossa, editors, Taste, Nutrition and Health, Basel: MDPI, published 2020, →ISBN, page 302:

     Peely/peel oil aroma

   • 2021, Rob Arnold, The Terroir of Whiskey: A Distiller’s Journey into the Flavor of Place, New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press, →ISBN:

     [“Aroma”:] Fruity-citrus [“Description”:] A citric, sour, astringent, slightly sweet, peely, and somewhat floral aromatic that may include lemons, limes, grapefruits, or oranges [“Reference scale”:] 4.5: lemon peel and lime peel 7.5: grapefruit peel

   • 2021, Rob Buckhaven, The Alcorithm: A Revolutionary Flavour Guide to Find the Drinks You’ll Love, London: Penguin Books, →ISBN:

     Chuck grapefruit into the equation and it feels a bit like a battle of the bitters. Yet it’s that sticky, pulpy, peely, pectin-rich marmalade that gives rise to aromas resembling Aperitivos, Amari, the Negroni [Amaros, p.224], the tooth-loosening Vin de Paille [Dessert Wine, p.164] and the racy grapefruit and orange zesty outline of an Italian Grillo [White Wine, p.135].

3. (rare) Intended to be peeled.
   • 1970, Doreen Lackenbauer, Mary Ellen Adair, Noreen Hishon, Small Blue Bead, Ginn, page 41:

     Oranges’ skins are more peely than pare-y.

   • 1987, The Age of Johnson, number 18, AMS Press, page 426:

     An article in the New York Times dated 19 July 2005 announces that laser-coded “Tattooed Fruit Is on the Way,” and that it will bring “an end to those tiny stubborn stickers that have to be picked, scraped, or yanked off.” Hmm. Were those “stubborn stickers” really so annoying? Well, the peely labels may have had their day—but let it be remember that in that day, Paul was an Early and an Active Riser.

   • 2015, Jeremy Bouma, “Prosperous”, in God Says You Are: Understanding Your Identity in Christ, Racine, Wis.: BroadStreet Publishing Group, →ISBN:

     That winter McDonald’s was running one of their big prize contests—the ones with the little peel-y things on the sides of drink cups and fry containers. While my sister and I were enjoying our Happy Meals, my mother peeled off the tab on the side of her drink. Her eyes widened when she looked at it. “Is this right?” she asked Dad. “Is this what I think it is?” She didn’t want to get her hopes up so, she went to the front counter for confirmation. She was right: A $100 prize was stuck to the side of my mom’s McDonald’s cup!

   • 2018, Theodore C. Van Alst Jr., “Old Gold Couch”, in Sacred Smokes, Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, →ISBN, page 4:

     What he was really interested in was the little gold peely things that came off when you opened up a pack of smokes.

   • 2023, “Fruit Peel a Part – Strawberry Splits”, in Annie’s Homegrown‎, archived from the original on 2023-10-06:

     Kids will come hopping for these peely fruit-flavored snacks that offer great tastes and fun

4. (rare) Having a peel.

   Synonym: (rare) peeled

   • 1991, P. W. Lucas, R. T. Corlett, “Quantitative aspects of the relationship between dentitions and diets”, in Julian F. V. Vincent, P. J. Lillford, editors, Feeding and the Texture of Food, Cambridge, Cambs: Cambridge University Press, published p. 2003, →ISBN, page 99:

     Primates process protected fruits by holding them in the hand(s) and removing the peel with the incisors. The ability of primates to consume unprotected fruits is restricted by competition from birds whereas texture prevents birds from consuming peely fruits.

   • 1994, P. W. Lucas, “Categorisation of food items relevant to oral processing”, in D. J. Chivers, P. Langer, editors, The Digestive System in Mammals: Food, Form and Function, Cambridge, Cambs: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, part III (Form), page 208:

     They may possess a thin skin, which separates with difficulty from the flesh, or a thick layer that peels easily from the flesh and is, therefore, best called a peel. Only fleshy fruits are intended for consumption by vertebrates. In the South American rain-forest, Janson (1983) found that skinned fruits were consumed mainly by birds whereas anthropoid primates appeared to concentrate on peely fruits. It is quite possible that the spatulate incisor, distinctive of anthropoid primates, evolved in the common ancestor for opening peely fruit (Lucas, 1989a).

   • 2008, Hanson Bonnie Compton, Songs for a Mockingbird, Starik Publishing, →ISBN:

     “[…] Now, why don’t you and Sunshine and Hop-to-It sit down quietly and have a banana? Be sure to put the peel in the trash can.” “A real banana? Oh, Mommy, I just love those really silly peely things. I could eat them forever and ever!”

   • 2015, Kelly McCullough, “Bad Noir—Morning Arrived”, in Kelly McCullough‎, archived from the original on 2015-07-03:

     Morning arrived like a monken drunky. *Hic* Gimme banannnn, bana, banananana…peely fruit! Oh, and turn off that big yellow light!

   • 2013 October 30, Anorak, “Footballers Forever Associated With Certain Items Of Food”, in Flashbak‎, Alum Media Ltd., archived from the original on 2014-08-29:

     Bananas / [image] / Eternal spring chicken Gordon Strachan (pictured here with the world’s largest banana split) famously lives on a diet of the curvy peely fruit.

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