Peek \Peek\ (p[=e]k), v. i. [OE. piken: cf. F. piquer to pierce,
   prick, E. pique. Cf. Peak.]
   To look surreptitiously, or with the eyes half closed, or
   through a crevice; to peep. [Colloq.]
   [1913 Webster]

	

	peek
    n 1: a secret look [syn: peek, peep]
    v 1: throw a glance at; take a brief look at; "She only glanced
         at the paper"; "I only peeked--I didn't see anything
         interesting" [syn: glance, peek, glint]

	

	24 Moby Thesaurus words for "peek":
   bend the eyes, blink, cast, direct the eyes, flash, gander, glance,
   glimpse, half an eye, look, meddle, nose, peep, peer,
   play peekaboo, pry, quick sight, rapid glance, slant, snoop, spy,
   squiz, take a peep, wink

	

	PEEK
       Partners Early Experience Kit (Taligent)

	

	peek
 n.,vt.

    (and poke) The commands in most microcomputer BASICs for directly
    accessing memory contents at an absolute address; often extended to mean
    the corresponding constructs in any HLL (peek reads memory, poke modifies
    it). Much hacking on small, non-MMU micros used to consist of peeking
    around memory, more or less at random, to find the location where the
    system keeps interesting stuff. Long (and variably accurate) lists of such
    addresses for various computers circulated. The results of pokes at these
    addresses may be highly useful, mildly amusing, useless but neat, or (most
    likely) total lossage (see killer poke).

    Since a real operating system provides useful, higher-level services for
    the tasks commonly performed with peeks and pokes on micros, and real
    languages tend not to encourage low-level memory groveling, a question like
    ?How do I do a peek in C?? is diagnostic of the newbie. (Of course, OS
    kernels often have to do exactly this; a real kernel hacker would
    unhesitatingly, if unportably, assign an absolute address to a pointer
    variable and indirect through it.)

	

	PEEK

   The command in most microcomputer BASICs for reading
   memory contents (a byte) at an absolute address.  POKE is the
   corresponding command to write a value to an absolute address.

   This is often extended to mean the corresponding constructs in
   any High Level Language.

   Much hacking on small microcomputers without MMUs consists
   of "peek"ing around memory, more or less at random, to find
   the location where the system keeps interesting stuff.  Long
   (and variably accurate) lists of such addresses for various
   computers circulate (see interrupt list).  The results of
   "poke"s at these addresses may be highly useful, mildly
   amusing, useless but neat, or total lossage (see killer
   poke).

   Since a real operating system provides useful, higher-level
   services for the tasks commonly performed with peeks and pokes
   on micros, and real languages tend not to encourage low-level
   memory groveling, a question like "How do I do a peek in C?"
   is diagnostic of the newbie.  Of course, operating system
   kernels often have to do exactly this; a real C hacker
   would unhesitatingly, if unportably, assign an absolute
   address to a pointer variable and indirect through it.

   [Jargon File]

   (1995-01-31)