The track garnered generally negative reviews and criticism from journalists, who mostly criticized the song's "cock, cock, cock" line.
Greg Kot from the
Chicago Tribune said that "Peacock" adapting the beat from Basil's "Mickey" into a suggestive metaphor "barely qualifies as an off-color joke let alone a song."
Stephen Thomas Erlewine from
AllMusic found the singer to have distinguished herself through "desperate
vulgarity". Erlewine concluded: "All this stylized provocation is exhausting, and not just because there's so much of it (none of it actually arousing). It's tiring because, at her heart, Perry is old-fashioned and is invested in none of her aggressive teasing." Elysa Gardner from
USA Today advised people who buy the album to skip the song. In his negative review for the album, Matthew Cole of
Slant Magazine found it difficult to think of a song more unrefined or more irritating than "Peacock". He believed all reviews of
Teenage Dream will discuss the track, which will be because it is "potentially historic in its badness, to the point that, once you've heard it, you too will have to describe it to other people just to convince yourself that it really exists."
Spin magazine writer Mikael Wood remarked that the song contains a double entendre that even a performer such as
Kesha could find crude. Writing in music website
Sputnikmusic, Rudy Klapper said she would bet that "Peacock" would "never [be] seeing the light of day, primarily because it's a terrible song with a double entendre so blunt it would make Ke$ha blush". Klapper also said the lyrics do not complement Perry's writing skills.
The Washington Post staff writer Chris Richards' review of the track was also negative. Talking about how hooks on
Teenage Dream are catchy, but quickly start to erode if listeners pay more attention to the words, he cited "Peacock" as an example of this. Describing its chorus as "an earworm of the highest order," he said some of the lyrics are enough to make people clench their teeth. ==Chart performance==