woodcock

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wodecok,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English wuducocc, also wudecocc,^[5][6][2][4] a compound of wudu (“wood”) and cocc (“cock”),^[3][4][7][8] that is, wood and cock.^[5] The word passed into Old French as witecos, also huitecox and videcos, and into Norman dialect as videcoq.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The European woodcock: in Old English glossaries, where wudecocc and wuducoc translate Latin bird names.^[5][6] The Middle English Dictionary's first quotation, wode-koc, is an English gloss in a manuscript of Bibbesworth from before 1325.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The bird was prized as food and as a test of a sportsman's skill,^[3] and Middle English already had collective names for a group of them, such as a fall of woodcocks.^[2] Because it was so easily caught in a snare or net, from about 1430, in Lydgate, the woodcock stood for a gullible fool, or for someone caught by a trick;^[5][9] the phrase wise as a woodcock was used ironically in the early 16th century.^[9] Johnson (1755) described the bird as a long-billed bird of passage and noted that the word was "ludicrously used for a dunce", quoting Shakespeare.^[10] The name was later given to other birds, especially the smaller American woodcock (1809).^[5][3] Other transferred uses named a variety of apple (1700), a kind of heavy, unproductive soil (1764) and a seashell, the thorny woodcock (1815).^[5] English dialects had compounds such as woodcock-owl for the short-eared owl and, in Yorkshire, woodcock-pilot for the goldcrest, both birds that arrive about the same time as the woodcock, and woodcock-soil in East Anglia.^[11]

Timeline

• Old English – wuducocc, the woodcock.^[5][6]
• before 1325 – wode-koc, in a gloss.^[2]
• c. 1430 – allusively, a fool or a gullible person.^[5] Green's Dictionary of Slang's first quotation is from Hickscorner (1512).^[9]
• 1700 – a variety of apple.^[5]
• 1764 – a kind of clayey, unproductive soil.^[5][11]
• 1809 – applied to other birds, such as the American woodcock.^[5]
• 1815 – a seashell, the thorny woodcock.^[5]
• 1817 – verb, to act like a woodcock, in M. Edgeworth's Ormond.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long-billed game bird (Scolopax rusticola) of Europe and Asia, related to the snipe, with large eyes and mottled brown plumage, living in damp woodlands.^{[4][12][5][7]}
2. A smaller related bird of eastern North America (Scolopax minor).^[4][5]
3. (archaic) A simpleton or a gullible person.^{[13][5][9][10]}

Word family

• Scotch woodcock

Related words

• wood
• cock
• snipe

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers