Synonyms:
woodpecker, peckerwood, pecker
Meaning: bird with strong claws and a stiff tail adapted for climbing and a hard chisel-like bill for boring into wood for insects
Usage examples
Yesterday he brought home a woodpecker in his game-bag."
"That's no excuse for including a woodpecker in his game-bag."
The easiest way to get it is by the help of a black woodpecker.
Then spread the red cloth quickly under the tree, so that the woodpecker may think it is a fire, and in her terror drop the root.
When you see her do this, take a scarlet cloak, or if that be lacking to you, buy a few yards of scarlet cloth, and hurry back to the tree before the woodpecker returns with the spring-root in her beak.
This went on for some time, but at last one of the boys spied out a woodpecker in the meadow-lands among the wood-pigeons, and when he had found her nest in a half-dead alder tree, came running to Peter with the news of his discovery.
But by-and-by the quarrel was patched up, and everything went on as before. From that day Peter saved up every penny that his daughter Lucia gave him on the sly, and bribed the boys of his acquaintance to spy out a black woodpecker's nest for him.