Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Peel

Peel (pēl) , noun

[Old English pel. Compare Pile a heap.]

A small tower, fort, or castle; a keep. [Scottish]

Peel , noun

[French pelle, Latin pala.]

A spadelike implement, variously used, as for removing loaves of bread from a baker's oven; also, a T-shaped implement used by printers and bookbinders for hanging wet sheets of paper on lines or poles to dry. Also, the blade of an oar.

Peel , transitive verb

[Confused with peel to strip, but from French piller to pillage. See Pill to rob, Pillage.]

To plunder; to pillage; to rob. [Obsolete]
But govern ill the nations under yoke, Peeling their provinces. — Milton

Peel (pēld) , transitive verb

[French peler to pull out the hair, to strip, to peel, from Latin pilare to deprive of hair, from pilus a hair; or perh. partly from French peler to peel off the skin, perh. from Latin pellis skin (compare Fell skin). Compare Peruke.]

1.
To strip off the skin, bark, or rind of; to strip by drawing or tearing off the skin, bark, husks, etc.; to flay; to decorticate; as, to peel an orange.
The skillful shepherd peeled me certain wands. — Shakespeare
2.
To strip or tear off; to remove by stripping, as the skin of an animal, the bark of a tree, etc.

Peel , intransitive verb

1.
To lose the skin, bark, or rind; to come off, as the skin, bark, or rind does; -- often used with an adverb; as, the bark peels easily or readily.
2.
To strip naked; to disrobe. Often used with down. [nformal]

Peel , noun

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