peer

peer1 (pɪə)
—n
1.	a member of a nobility; nobleman
2.	See also life peer a person who holds any of the five grades of the British nobility: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron
3.	a.  a person who is an equal in social standing, rank, age, etc
	b.  (as modifier): peer pressure
4.	archaic a companion; mate
[C14 (in sense 3): from Old French per, from Latin pār equal]

peer
EXPAND

of "one of the same age group or social set" is from 1944. Peerage first recorded 1454. Peer review is first recorded 1971.

peer

1590s, variant of piren (late 14c.), with a long -i-, probably related to or from E. Fris. piren "to look," of uncertain origin. Influenced in form and sense by M.E. peren (late 14c.), aphetic form of aperen (see appear).

COLLAPSE

peer definition

networking
A unit of communications hardware or software that is on the same protocol layer of a network as another. A common way of viewing a communications link is as two protocol stacks, which are actually connected only at the very lowest (physical) layer, but can be regarded as being connected at each higher layer by virtue of the services provided by the lower layers. Peer-to-peer communication refers to these real or virtual connections between corresponding systems in each layer.
To give a simple example, when two people talk to each other, the lowest layer is the physical layer which concerns the sound pressure waves travelling from mouth to ear (so mouths and ears are peers) the next layer might be the speech and hearing centres in the people's brains and the top layer their cerebellums or minds. Although, barring telepathy, nothing passes directly between the two minds, there is a peer-to-peer communication between them.
(2007-03-27)

PEER Performance Efficiency Evaluation Report Program for Extraordinary Experience Research