woodcock

American  

[wood-kok] / ˈwʊdˌkɒk /

noun

• woodcocks,
  plural
• woodcock
  plural

1. either of two plump, short-legged migratory game birds of variegated brown plumage, the Eurasian Scolopax rusticola and the smaller American Philohela minor.

2. any of various pileated or ivory-billed woodpeckers.

3. Archaic. a simpleton.

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woodcock British  

/ ˈwʊdˌkɒk /

noun

1. an Old World game bird, Scolopax rusticola, resembling the snipe but larger and having shorter legs and neck: family Scolopacidae (sandpipers, etc), order Charadriiformes

2. a related North American bird, Philohela minor

3. obsolete a simpleton

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• woodcock
  plural
• woodcocks
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of woodcock

before 1050; Middle English wodecok, Old English wuducoc. See wood ¹, cock ¹

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

woodcock woodcocks

Most important, is it too late for the American woodcock to sue?

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 2, 2026

New Yorkers can’t get enough of the strutting woodcock.

From MarketWatch ● Apr. 9, 2026

"A lot of birds probably can't do it because they don't have these lower reproductive costs that woodcock have evolved to do," he said.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 19, 2024

In the spring and the fall, the American woodcock often makes an appearance.

From New York Times ● Jun. 6, 2023

Among them is the woodcock, a species that winters in southern areas recently heavily sprayed with heptachlor.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson

Food writing as politically incorrect and unabashedly chauvinistic is as rare these days as, say, the roasted woodcocks Liebling seems to have eaten by the dozen.

From Slate ● Nov. 22, 2017

There are dozens of Scolopacidae species spanning the globe, and while close to two dozen have "sandpiper" in their names, many more don't: godwits, woodcocks, stints, knots, yellowlegs, etc.

From The Verge ● Jun. 26, 2016

The Mighty Merlins knew from their reconnaissance that woodcocks started vocalizing about 4:30 a.m.

From Washington Post ● May 24, 2016

When it appeared in Britain, Cott was at once snapped up by the British armed forces to make their guns as inconspicuous as woodcocks, their tanks as bush bucks, their planes as pickerel.

From Time Magazine Archive

We traverse fields and forests, walk through barren lands where quails and woodcocks fly up at our feet, and, after twelve miles of bushwhacking, enter the Plattekill State Forest.

From "On the Far Side of the Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

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