Meaning

noun climber having dark red berries (peppercorns) when fully ripe; southern India and Sri Lanka; naturalized in northern Burma and Assam

noun any of various tropical plants of the genus Capsicum bearing peppers

noun pungent seasoning from the berry of the common pepper plant of East India; use whole or ground

originFrom Middle English peper, piper, from Old English piper, from Proto-West Germanic *pipar, from Latin piper, from an Indo-Aryan source; compare Sanskrit पिप्पलि (pippali, “long pepper”). The name was given to the capsicum fruit because of its unusual spicy taste, not unlike the Old World spice. Cognate with Scots pepar, Saterland Frisian Pieper, West Frisian piper, Dutch peper, German Low German…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0