To strip off skin, bark or rind without a cutting instrument; to strip by drawing or tearing off the skin; to bark; to flay; to decorticate. When a knife is used, we call it paring. Thus we say, to peel a tree, to peel an orange; but we say, to pare an apple to pare land.

In a general sense, to remove the skin, bark or rind, even with an instrument.

To strip; to plunder; to pillage; as, to peel a province or conquered people.

The skin or rind of any thing; as the peel of an orange.

A kind of wooden shovel used by bakers, with a broad palm and long handle; hence, in popular use in America, any large fire-shovel.