pet

1. (transitive) To stroke or fondle (an animal).Examples: "I really love to pet cute puppies."Synonyms: pat, smoothtransitive

2. (transitive, intransitive, informal) To stroke or fondle (another person) amorously.Examples: "We started petting each other the moment we were alone."; "1970-1975, Lou Sullivan, personal diary, quoted in 2019, Ellis Martin, Zach Ozma (editors), We Both Laughed In Pleasure We kissed & petted for about 15 mins & he still wasn't hard, altho he acted like he was enjoying himself."informalintransitivetransitive

3. (dated, transitive) To treat as a pet; to fondle; to indulge.Examples: "His daughter was petted and spoiled."; "[…] the American dramatist has had to waste most of his first act elaborately planting the information that his Mister Quex is rich, petted by Society, and altogether more spectacular than the common run of men."Synonyms: coddledatedtransitive

4. (archaic, intransitive) To be a pet.archaicintransitive

5. (archaic, intransitive) To be peevish; to sulk.Examples: "He sure is queasie stomach't that must pet, and puke, at such a trivial circumstance"Synonyms: mope, poutarchaicintransitive

1. (figurative) Favourite; cherished; the focus of one's (usually positive) attention.Examples: "a pet project"; "a pet child"; "The professor seemed offended by the criticism of her pet theory."figurativelynot-comparable

2. (literally) Kept or treated as a pet.Examples: "pet rock"literallynot-comparable

3. (obsolete) Good; ideal.Examples: "“Now,” said Hands, “look there; there’s a pet bit for to beach a ship in. Fine flat sand, never a cat's paw, trees all around of it, and flowers a-blowing like a garding on that old ship.”"not-comparableobsolete

1. (Ireland, Geordie) A term of endearment usually applied to women and children.GeordieIreland

1. (uncountable, organic chemistry) Initialism of polyethylene terephthalate.Synonyms: PETEabbreviationalt-ofinitialismuncountable

2. (countable and uncountable, medicine) Acronym of positron emission tomography.Examples: "He [Rob Beanlands] is a founding director of the National Cardiac PET Centre, the first facility in Canada dedicated to the use of PET (positron-emission tomography) as a non-invasive cardiac diagnostic tool. PET technology can help determine whether areas of the heart muscle are receiving enough blood, if there is heart damage or scar tissue in the heart, or if there is a buildup of abnormal substances in the heart muscle."abbreviationacronymalt-ofcountableuncountable

3. (countable, genetics) Acronym of paired-end tag.Synonyms: ditagabbreviationacronymalt-ofcountable

4. (countable, historical, computing, backronym) Acronym of personal electronic transactor, a line of personal computers produced by Commodore International.Examples: "Why is the order of graphical characters in the PETSCII table so seemingly haphazard? The answer is that arrangement was dictated by the PET keyboard design, a hardware-driven decision."abbreviationacronymalt-ofcountablehistorical

5. (medicine) Initialism of perineal ectopic testis (a rare congenital anomaly of the testis).abbreviationalt-ofcountableinitialismuncountable

1. (Canadian politics) Initialism of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.Examples: "But Wright takes a rather contrarian position about the impact of emotionally charged Trudeaumania on PET’s astonishing political rise in 1968."Canadianabbreviationalt-ofinitialism