“The headline peaked my interest.”
PEAKED is about reaching a summit. For a stirring of curiosity, the word is PIQUED.
Confusables Entry 20 / 1011 60-second read
Piqued vs. Peaked
Stirred up (as in curiosity) versus reaching a high point (as in mountains).
The comparisoni
“The headline piqued my interest.”
PIQUED — from French ‘piquer,’ to prick — means it got a rise out of you.
More examplesii
01
That article really peaked my curiosity.
That article really piqued my curiosity.
Curiosity was stirred up — PIQUED.
02
The stock piqued in March and has fallen since.
The stock peaked in March and has fallen since.
Stock hit its highest point — PEAKED.
The ruleiii
¶
PIQUED stirs. PEAKED tops out.
PIQUE is emotional — it pricks or provokes. PEAK is geometric — something reaches its highest point. The two sound alike and share nothing else.
Notesiv
Register
Both verbs are standard. ‘Piqued’ is the less common word and therefore the more often misspelled.
Watch for
Don’t reach for ‘peeked’ (to glance) either. ‘Her curiosity peeked’ is a third, even more common mistake — wrong on both counts.
Memory aidv
Remember it like this
Sherlock Holmes’s catchphrase ‘My curiosity is piqued’ uses the right word. If a headline did its job, your interest was PIQUED — not PEAKED.
In the wildvi
Real-world-style usage — how this looks in a sentence people would actually write.
- The mystery piqued her interest in a way no straightforward thriller could; she read until she’d peaked in exhaustion.
- Ratings peaked in 1997, but the show’s cult status was piqued by a single re-run in 2004.
Test yourselfvii
Which is right?