Peer - pier

Peer and pier are two homophones, rhyming with 'beer' and 'ear', IPA: /pɪə/. Peer has several distinct meanings; the different meanings of pier are all related.

• As a noun, peer has made a great shift, and is used in two rather different ways.
  • Originally it meant 'equal'. In this sense, we still say in Law Courts that a man charged will be judged "by a jury of his peers". This means that, in England and Wales, 12 people (traditionally all males, but now of either sex) who, being chosen at random, are the 'equal' of the accused, will deliver the verdict. The adjective peerless, and the adjective phrase without peer, are both used to mean 'unequalled'
  • In the hierarchically constructed society of the Middle Ages, peer developed to mean 'the equal of important people', and thus, in the feudal system, one who had the right, by birth, to sit as a member of Parliament - naturally enough, of the "Upper" House. In Britain, such a person is now known as a 'peer of the realm': "a member of a rank of hereditary nobility in Britain or Ireland; a duke, marquess, earl, viscount, or baron" (OED). Since 1958 it has also been possible to hold a peerage only for the lifetime of one person. These are called life peers. The opposite to a peer in this sense is a commoner.
  • The verb 'to peer' is not connected with either meaning of the noun. It means 'to look closely at', sometimes with the sense of being short-sighted (presbyopic) or screwing up one's eyes: "He is so near-sighted, that he peers in every body's face a minute or two before he knows them" said Fanny Burney in her diary of 3 Apr., 1775 (cited in OED). By a form of transferred epithet, it can also be used of something that is only just visible: the rising sun may peer out from behind a mountain
• A pier on the other hand has the basic meaning of 'a solid support, in building and so on'. A pier was first the support from which an arch rises or 'springs' (most arches have two piers). Two uses develop from this:
  • Builders call the solid wall between two openings, such as two windows or a door and a window, a pier. This is where a pier glass, or full length wall-mounted mirror, might be fixed, a fashion essentially of the eighteenth century. The word is sometimes extended to mean the open space in front of this solid stretch of wall.
  • The solid column between two arches of a bridge, serving to act as one of the supports for both of them, is called a pier. Such a pier is often solidly founded in the bed of a river.
  • There is also a horizontal form of pier, also founded in the bed of a body of water. The seaside pier began as a form of protection to a harbour or to ships. In this sense it is sometimes called a 'breakwater' or a 'mole'. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, many pleasure piers were constructed simply for tourists to stroll upon - and to attend the various amusements that were housed on them.

For another set of homophones that have been confused with these two, see Pair - pare - pear.