woodcock
Americannoun
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either of two plump, short-legged migratory game birds of variegated brown plumage, the Eurasian Scolopax rusticola and the smaller American Philohela minor.
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any of various pileated or ivory-billed woodpeckers.
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Archaic. a simpleton.
noun
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an Old World game bird, Scolopax rusticola, resembling the snipe but larger and having shorter legs and neck: family Scolopacidae (sandpipers, etc), order Charadriiformes
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a related North American bird, Philohela minor
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obsolete a simpleton
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of woodcock
before 1050; Middle English wodecok, Old English wuducoc. See wood 1, cock 1
Vocabulary lists containing woodcock
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
New Yorkers can’t get enough of the strutting woodcock.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 9, 2026
Another evolutionary driver of itinerant breeding in woodcock could be predation.
From Science Daily • Apr. 19, 2024
The woodcock, also known as the timberdoodle, can be spotted on the ground beneath shrubbery, doing a groovy little dance.
From New York Times • Jun. 6, 2023
A bird conservation charity said it had been locked out of its Twitter account for eight days after posting several tweets about woodcock.
From BBC • Jan. 31, 2023
Among them is the woodcock, a species that winters in southern areas recently heavily sprayed with heptachlor.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
