woodpecker

Etymology

It is formed from English wood + pecker.^[2][3][4] The OED analyses it as wood, peck and the suffix -er, and suggests that it may have been prompted in part by reading the older woodspeck as a plural or genitive of wood followed by peck.^[5] The forms woodpicker and woodpeaker are comparable with pick, of which peck was apparently a variant.^[5] The OED compares the older woodhack,^[5] and the Middle English names include wod spek, wodehake and wodewale.^[1] The OED also compares compounds in Ancient Greek: δρυκολάπτης (drukoláptēs) in Aristophanes and δρυοκολάπτης (druokoláptēs) in Aristotle, from δρῦς (drûs, “tree”) and κολάπτω (koláptō, “to peck”).^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The bird: 1530, in Palsgrave's Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse.^[5] Etymonline dates it to the 1520s,^[2] Merriam-Webster to about 1530,^[6] and the Shorter Oxford to the mid 16th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The name competed with many local ones in Britain and the United States: Etymonline lists woodpie, woodspite, wood-tapper, hickwall, wood-wale and pickatree, and others based on the bird's laughing call, such as yaffingale (about 1600) and yaffle (1802).^[2] Its repeated small pecks gave a gambling sense in 1608: Dekker wrote of the bystander who "stands by & Ventures", a person placing small bets on a player, a use recorded until 1785.^[7][5] Its tapping sound made it American and Australian military slang for a machine gun from 1898,^[5][7] and American underworld slang used it for a typist in 1950.^[7] Johnson (1755) derived it from wood and peck and simply called it a bird, quoting a passage on its unusual tongue.^[8] In Perthshire and Ireland the name was given to the tree-creeper.^[9]

Timeline

• 1530 – the bird.^[5][10]
• 1608 – in gamblers' cant, a bystander who places small bets, obsolete by 1785.^[5][7]
• 1898 – a machine gun, in American and Australian military slang.^[5][10]
• 1950 – a typist, in American underworld slang.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. Any of many climbing birds of the family Picidae, with a hard bill for drilling into bark in search of insects, stiff tail feathers that support them on the trunk and usually boldly marked plumage.^[6][5][4]
2. (military slang) A machine gun.^[5][4][7]
3. (US underworld slang) A typist.^[7]
4. (obsolete, 1608–1785) In gambling, a bystander who places small bets on a player.^[5][7]

Related words

• wood
• peck
• pecker
• pick
• woodspeck

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ 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)
10. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)