Pronunciations (4)
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/pɛt/
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[pʰɛt]
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[pʰɛʔ]
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[pʰɛʔt]
Noun
An animal kept as a companion or otherwise for pleasure, rather than for some practical benefit or use.
- Examples
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family pet, pet cat, pet dog, pet store
My dog Fido has been a loyal pet for ten years.
Something kept as a companion, including inanimate objects.
Usage- broadly
- Examples
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pet plant, pet rock
Papyrus: This is my brother's pet rock. He always forgets to feed it. As usual, I have to take responsibility.
One who is excessively loyal to a superior and receives preferential treatment.
Any person or animal especially cherished and indulged; a darling.
- Examples
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More examples (1)
At first she sat silent; but that could not last: she had resolved to make a pet of her little cousin, as she would have him to be; and she commenced stroking his curls, and kissing his cheek, and offering him tea in her saucer, like a baby.
the love of cronies, pets, and favourites
Verb
To stroke or fondle (an animal).
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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I really love to pet cute puppies.
To stroke or fondle (another person) amorously.
Usage- Informal
- Intransitive
- Transitive
- Examples
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We started petting each other the moment we were alone.
So we kissed + petted for about 15 mins. + he still wasn't hard, altho he acted like he was enjoying himself.
To keep or treat (an animal) as a pet.
Usage- Dated
- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Deer are often tamed and petted, and their flesh is so much esteemed by all Malays, that it is very natural they should endeavour to introduce them into the remote islands in which they settled, and whose luxuriant forests seem so well adapted for their subsistence.
To treat (someone) as a pet; to fondle; to indulge.
Usage- Dated
- Transitive
- Examples
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His daughter was petted and spoiled.
More examples (1)
[…] the American dramatist has had to waste most of his first act elaborately planting the information that his Mister Quex is rich, petted by Society, and altogether more spectacular than the common run of men.
To be a pet.
Usage- Archaic
- Intransitive
To be peevish; to sulk.
Usage- Archaic
- Intransitive
- Examples
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He sure is queasie stomach't that must pet, and puke, at such a trivial circumstance
Adjective
Favourite; cherished; the focus of one's (usually positive) attention.
Usage- Figurative
- not-comparable
- Examples
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a pet project
a pet child
More examples (6)
The professor seemed offended by the criticism of her pet theory.
Some young lady's pet curate.
Major Butler has a pet grievance and a pet aversion, which he forces on the reader in every chapter, and which becomes at last very wearisome.
In an interview with Flying magazine, Heberding commented that her pet annoyance was "the reluctance of people generally to accept a woman whether as a pilot or a preflight inspector."
Discussing a favourite book, JW Dunne's An Experiment with Time—a 1927 study by an English aeronautical engineer who developed his own pet theories about dreams, perception and reality—he [Gaspar Noé] sounds like an earnest young philosophy student.
But these digital currencies[…] have now become a pet project of the US administration and a hot topic in corporate boardrooms.
Kept or treated as a pet.
Usage- literally
- not-comparable
- Examples
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pet rock
Good; ideal.
Usage- not-comparable
- Obsolete
- Examples
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More examples (1)
“Now,” said Hands, “look there; there’s a pet bit for to beach a ship in. Fine flat sand, never a cat's paw, trees all around of it, and flowers a-blowing like a garding on that old ship.”
Noun
A fit of petulance, a sulk, arising from the impression that one has been offended or slighted.
- Examples
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More examples (2)
His genius at this time was of a decidedly gloomy cast. He brought his mother a tragedy, in which, though he killed sixteen people before the second act, it made her laugh so, that he thrust the masterpiece into the fire in a pet.
There was something ludicrous, even more, unbecoming a gentleman, in leaving a friend's house in a pet, with the host's reproaches sounding in his ears, to be matched only by the bitterness of the guest's sneering retorts.
Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet.
Verb
To be petulant or upset; to have a problem with.
- Examples
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Got suttin' in the glove compartment and I won't pet to use it
Noun
A term of endearment usually applied to women and children.
Usage- Geordie
- Ireland
- Related words
Adjective
preferred above all others and treated with partiality
- Examples
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the favored child
Noun
a domesticated animal kept for companionship or amusement
a special loved one
- Broader terms
a fit of petulance or sulkiness (especially at what is felt to be a slight)
Verb
stroke or caress gently
- Examples
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pet the lamb
stroke or caress in an erotic manner, as during lovemaking