woodcock

From Middle English wodecocke, wode-koc, wodekok, from Old English wudecocc, wuducoc, equivalent to wood +‎ cock.

• IPA^(key): /ˈwʊd.kɒk/

woodcock (plural woodcock or woodcocks)

A woodcock and its lunch, an earthworm.

1. Any of several wading birds in the genus Scolopax, of the family Scolopacidae, characterised by a long slender bill and cryptic brown and blackish plumage.
   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 286:

     "[A]h, that was the woodcock and the goatsucker - yes, yes! it sounds strange to him, that hasn't heard him[.]"

2. A simpleton.
   • c. 1607–1611, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher, “Cupid’s Revenge”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1679, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i:

     If I loved you not, I would laugh at you, and see you / Run your neck into the noose, and cry, "A woodcock!"

   • 1838, Nathan Drake, Belletristical Works, volume 1, page 215:

     "Now will that silly woodcock make such a report of what I have said to his chosen friend," observed Sir Robert to his companion when my Lord Cobham was out of hearing […]

• roding, the patrolling flight pattern of the woodcock.