'Peal' is the ringing of bells or a burst of loud sound; 'peel' means to remove skin from fruit, or the skin itself.
Noun/verb. A loud ringing sound, especially of bells. Also: a burst of laughter or thunder.
A peal of church bells rang across the village at noon.
She burst into a peal of laughter at the unexpected joke.
Peals of thunder rolled across the mountains all afternoon.
Verb/noun. To remove the outer layer of a fruit or vegetable. Also: the outer skin or rind itself.
Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters before boiling.
Orange peel can be used to flavour cakes and sauces.
The paint started to peel off the walls after the flooding.
Common mistake
"A peel of thunder" when meaning a burst of sound (correct: peal). Or "The bells peeled for the wedding" (correct: pealed — rang). Or "Peal the banana" (correct: peel).
Trick to remember it
'Peal' has EA like 'beat' and 'real' — a peal of bells is a real, resonant beat. 'Peel' has double E like 'skin' has two layers — the peel is something you remove from a surface.
Quick rule
Is it the resonant sound (bells, laughter, thunder)? 'Peal'. Is it removing fruit skin or the skin itself? 'Peel'.
Did you know?
Change ringing — the art of ringing church bells in mathematical sequences — is uniquely English. Ringers arrange bells in every possible permutation without repeating. With 8 bells there are 40,320 possible sequences; a 'peal' in ringers' terms means completing at least 5,000 changes, taking 3-4 hours. The mathematical elegance of bell ringing attracted mathematicians for centuries — Leibniz, the co-inventor of calculus, wrote about it.
Exercise 1 · Pick the right one
A _____ of laughter erupted from the conference room during the team meeting.
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
_____ and slice the apples before adding them to the pie filling.
Exercise 3 · Form the word
Is it the resonant sound (bells, laughter, thunder)? 'Peal'. Is it removing fruit skin or the skin itself? 'Peel'.
"A peel of thunder" when meaning a burst of sound (correct: peal). Or "The bells peeled for the wedding" (correct: pealed — rang). Or "Peal the banana" (correct: peel).
'Peal' has EA like 'beat' and 'real' — a peal of bells is a real, resonant beat. 'Peel' has double E like 'skin' has two layers — the peel is something you remove from a surface.
Bryan López
Founder of SpeakUP Academy