peel

Think of an orange: when you peel it, you remove the skin to get to the fruit inside. But this is not just for fruit. You can peel wallpaper off a wall, take a label off a bottle, or watch old paint peel from a door. Skin can also peel after a sunburn, coming off in thin bits as the body heals. As a noun, a peel is the skin itself, like banana peel or orange peel. In everyday use, the word usually suggests that an outer layer comes off and shows what is underneath.

To peel generally means to remove the outer covering or layer of something. It is most commonly used for fruits and vegetables, like peeling potatoes for dinner or peeling an apple before eating it. You can also say, "She peeled the carrots with a vegetable peeler."

However, peel goes far beyond food. You can peel wallpaper off a wall, peel a label from a bottle, or see paint peel off an old fence. In these cases, a thin outer layer separates from the surface under it.

The word is also used when skin or another thin layer comes off by itself. After a sunburn, your skin may peel. Tree bark can peel in dry weather, and old paper can peel away from a damp wall. In each case, the idea is the same: the outside layer loosens and comes away.

Peel is also a noun. The peel of a banana, orange, or potato is its outer skin. You might throw the peel away, compost it, or use citrus peel in cooking. This noun sense is very common in daily English.

There is also an informal phrasal use, peel out, especially for cars. If a driver peeled out of a parking lot, they drove off very fast and the tires briefly lost grip on the road. So whether you are talking about fruit, paint, skin, or a fast departure, peel usually points to an outer layer coming off or being pulled away.