Peal or peel?
peal is a noun meaning “A loud sound, or a succession of loud sounds, as of bells, thunder, cannon…”; peel is a verb meaning “To remove the skin or outer covering of”. Use peal as a noun and peel as a verb (peel is also a noun: “The skin or outer layer of a fruit, vegetable, etc”). They sound the same (/piːl/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) peel is about 25 times as common as peal.
What is the difference between peal and peel?
| peal | peel | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | verb, noun |
| Meaning | A loud sound, or a succession of loud sounds, as of bells, thunder, cannon, shouts, laughter, of a multitude, etc A set of bells tuned to each other according to the diatonic scale To sound with a peal or peals | To remove the skin or outer covering of To remove something from the outer or top layer of The skin or outer layer of a fruit, vegetable, etc |
| Example | none recorded | I sat by my sister's bed, peeling oranges for her |
| Forms | peals | peels, peeling, peeled |
| Pronunciation | /piːl/ | /piːl/ [pʰiːɫ] [pʰiəɫ] |
| In writing | about once in every 4 million words | 6.3 times per million words |
Sources: peal and peel in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of peal and peel
peal
- 1
A loud sound, or a succession of loud sounds, as of bells, thunder, cannon, shouts, laughter, of a multitude, etc
- 2
To sound with a peal or peals
- 3
A small salmon; a grilse; a sewin
- 4
A set of bells tuned to each other according to the diatonic scale
- 5
To utter or sound loudly
- 6
The changes rung on a set of bells; in the strict sense a full peal of at least 5040 changes
- 7
To assail with noise
- 8
To resound; to echo
peel
- 1
To remove the skin or outer covering of
I sat by my sister's bed, peeling oranges for her
- 2
The skin or outer layer of a fruit, vegetable, etc
- 3
A shovel or similar instrument, now especially a pole with a flat disc at the end used for removing pizza or loaves of bread from a baker's oven
Near-synonym: pizza paddle
- 4
ScotlandAn equal or match; a draw
- 5
To play a peel shot
- 6
To send through a hoop (of a ball other than one's own)
- 7
Alternative form of peal (“a small or young salmon”)
- 8
To remove something from the outer or top layer of
I peeled (the skin from) a banana and ate it hungrily
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, peal or peel?
peal appears about once in every 4 million words; peel 6.3 times per million words.
peal about once in every 4 million wordspeel 6.3 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search peal vs peel?
“peal vs peel” is searched about 3,600 times a month on Google and 130 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“peel vs peal”, “peal or peel”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.