woodpecker

American

[wood-pek-er] / ˈwʊdˌpɛk ər /

noun

any of numerous climbing birds of the family Picidae, having a hard, chisel-like bill that it hammers repeatedly into wood in search of insects, stiff tail feathers to assist in climbing, and usually more or less boldly patterned plumage.

woodpecker British

/ ˈwʊdˌpɛkə /

noun

any climbing bird of the family Picidae, typically having a brightly coloured plumage and strong chisel-like bill with which they bore into trees for insects: order Piciformes

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of woodpecker

First recorded in 1520–30; wood ¹ + pecker

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.

Rowdy and I hadn’t been in the hole ten minutes when from somewhere in the bottoms an old woodpecker started banging away on a dead snag.

From Literature

The residents watched the same deer, coyotes and woodpeckers and played tennis and swam with the same dramatic backdrop of the Santa Monica Mountains.

From The Wall Street Journal

As a small-scale songbird rehabilitator I am not equipped, for instance, to take on a pileated woodpecker, which can smash its way out of any enclosure not made of steel.

From The Wall Street Journal

Dozens of animals rely on them to survive, from ladder-backed woodpeckers who nest in their trunks to desert night lizards who sleep and forage beneath their fallen boughs.

From Los Angeles Times

"This winter I got a woodpecker and a nuthatch" he said, adding the images were "extraordinary".

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023