wood pewee

American  

Or wood-pewee

noun

1. either of two small North American flycatchers, the western Contopus sordidulus or the eastern C. virens.

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Etymology

Origin of wood pewee

An Americanism dating back to 1800–10

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

wood pewee

The idea is cute and corny: eleven songs with themes that take off from the tunes of far-out birds like the purple finch and the wood pewee.

From Time Magazine Archive

“How would you know about a wood pewee in your business?”

From "My Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

The woodland thrushes' flutes and bells have ceased to breathe and chime, only the wood pewee keeps his pensive song of other days, yet best befitting those of declining summer.

From In New England Fields and Woods by Rowland E. (Evans) Robinson

I noted but one nest of the wood pewee, and that, too, like so many other nests, failed of issue.

From Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and Other Papers by John Burroughs

The wood pewee builds a neat, compact socket-shaped nest of moss and lichens on a horizontal branch.

From A Book of Natural History Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. by David Starr Jordan