Won't you pease pease me

The etymology of pea

Although an inferior crop had been cultivated since Roman times, the sweet-tasting garden pea was first grown in England at the end of the 15th century. At the time, a single pea was referred to as a pease.

This word was derived, via Old French pois (with the ‘s’ pronounced, unlike today’s silent letter), from the Latin pisum. The plural was occasionally written as ‘peases’, but more usually ‘peasen’ — or ‘peason’, as we can see in this extract from Michael Drayton’s Poly-Olbion of 1622:

(You may ask what a ‘Rouncefall’ was - this was the Runcival, or marrowfat pea, first mentioned fifty years earlier as a good plant to sow in January. Its name derives from the Hospital of St Mary Rounceval near Charing Cross, where these delicacies were apparently first grown.¹)