Definition of "peter"

You smile, act polite, shake their hands, then cut off their peters and put them in your pocket.” “Yes, Mr. President,” answered O'Brien.

1997, Shelby Scates, Warren G. Magnuson and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century America, page 141

... and you were there, and they acted like you weren't even born yet?' "I'd say, 'Yes, their memories are as long as their peters.'"

1998, Michael Robert Gorman, The Empress Is a Man: Stories from the Life of Jose Sarria, page 199

“It's to put on their peters when they don't want to make babies,” she said.

2002, Celia H Miles, Mattie's Girl: An Appalachian Childhood, page 64

It used to be simple to 'crack a peter'. Safe-breaking (blowing or cracking a 'peter') in the past three or four years shows that the expert cracksman knows his job.

1963, Kenneth Ullyett, Crime out of Hand, page 109

The forty quid! Gone! ’Ow could she ’ave gotten in there? The peter ain’t broke, no sign of it bein’ bettied, and I the only one w’ the key.

2013, Zack Wentz, “Simplicity itself”, in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, volume 10, page 161

[…] the ceremony of 'slopping out', breakfast, across to the main library from nine till half-past eleven, back to my peter for the mid-day meal and two hours' break, then the library again till five o'clock when tea was brought round and the cell door locked for the night.

1955, Rupert Croft-Cooke, The Verdict of You All, page 82

I found a veinlet about 15 in. wide and very rich in gold. Trenching along its outcrop showed that it extended about 100 ft. and then pinched out altogether. A winze sunk on the veinlet showed that it "petered out" entirely at 25 or 30 ft.

1910 T. Lane Carter: Mining in Nicaragua. Transactions of the American Institute of Mining Engineers. Vol. XLI. 1910. Canal Zone Meeting, October, 1910

Whitney is absorbed especially by Dublin's unglamorous interstitial zones: the new housing estates and labyrinths of roads, watercourses and railways where the city peters into its commuter belt.

2014 August 23, Neil Hegarty, “Hidden City: Adventures and Explorations in Dublin by Karl Whitney, review: ‘a necessary corrective’ [print version: Re-Joycing in Dublin, page R25]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Review)‎, London: Telegraph Media Group, archived from the original on 2022-05-20

My words petered away.

2021, Helen Fisher, Faye, Faraway, page 241