Zest vs. Peel — What's the Difference?

Flavor or piquancy

Remove the outer covering or skin from (a fruit, vegetable, or prawn)

Interest or excitement

Remove a thin outer covering or part

The outermost part of the rind of an orange, lemon, or other citrus fruit, used as flavoring

(of a surface or object) lose parts of its outer layer or covering in small strips or pieces

Spirited enjoyment; gusto

Send (another player's ball) through a hoop

To remove small pieces from (a rind from a citrus fruit) for use as a flavoring in cooking

The outer covering or rind of a fruit or vegetable

The outer skin of a citrus fruit, used as a flavouring or garnish.

An act of exfoliating dead skin in the cosmetic treatment of microdermabrasion.

General vibrance of flavour.

A flat implement like a shovel, especially one used by a baker for carrying loaves or similar items of food into or out of an oven

(by extension) Enthusiasm; keen enjoyment; relish; gusto.

A small square defensive tower of a kind built in the 16th century in the border counties of England and Scotland.

(rare) The woody, thick skin enclosing the kernel of a walnut.

The skin or rind of certain fruits and vegetables.

(cooking) To scrape the zest from a fruit.

A chemical peel.

To make more zesty.

A long-handled, shovellike tool used by bakers to move bread or pastries into and out of an oven.

A piece of orange or lemon peel, or the aromatic oil which may be squeezed from such peel, used to give flavor to liquor, etc.

(Printing) A T-shaped pole used for hanging up freshly printed sheets of paper to dry.

Hence, something that gives or enhances a pleasant taste, or the taste itself; an appetizer; also, keen enjoyment; relish; gusto.

A fortified house or tower of a kind constructed in the borderland of Scotland and England in the 1500s.

The woody, thick skin inclosing the kernel of a walnut.

To strip or cut away the skin, rind, or bark from; pare.

To cut into thin slips, as the peel of an orange, lemon, etc.; to squeeze, as peel, over the surface of anything.

To strip away; pull off

To give a relish or flavor to; to heighten the taste or relish of; as, to zest wine.

To lose or shed skin, bark, or other covering.

Vigorous and enthusiastic enjoyment

To come off in thin strips or pieces, as bark, skin, or paint

A tart spiciness

(transitive) To remove the skin or outer covering of.

Add herbs or spices to

(transitive) To remove something from the outer or top layer of.

(intransitive) To become detached, come away, especially in flakes or strips; to shed skin in such a way.

(intransitive) To remove one's clothing.

(intransitive) To move, separate (off or away).

(curling) To play a peel shot.

(croquet) To send through a hoop (of a ball other than one's own).

To plunder; to pillage, rob.

The skin or outer layer of a fruit, vegetable, etc.

The action of peeling away from a formation.

(countable) A cosmetic preparation designed to remove dead skin or to exfoliate.

(obsolete) A stake.

(obsolete) A fence made of stakes; a stockade.

(archaic) A small tower, fort, or castle; a keep.

A shovel or similar instrument, now especially a pole with a flat disc at the end used for removing pizza or loaves of bread from a baker's oven.

A T-shaped implement used by printers and bookbinders for hanging wet sheets of paper on lines or poles to dry.

The blade of an oar.

An equal or match; a draw.

(curling) A takeout which removes a stone from play as well as the delivered stone.

A small tower, fort, or castle; a keep.

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.

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

To plunder; to pillage; to rob.

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.

To strip or tear off; to remove by stripping, as the skin of an animal, the bark of a tree, etc.

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.

To strip naked; to disrobe. Often used with down .

The tissue forming the hard outer layer (of e.g. a fruit)

British politician (1788-1850)

The rind of a fruit or vegetable

Strip the skin off;

Come off in flakes or thin small pieces;

Get undressed;