Peckerwood
WordNet
noun
(1) Bird with strong claws and a stiff tail adapted for climbing and a hard chisel-like bill for boring into wood for insects
WiktionaryText
Etymology
Inversion of , from the bird seen as the symbol of Whites, as opposed to the black crow, symbol of Blacks.
Noun
- A white person, especially a Southerner, or when regarded as ignorant or rustic.
- 1946, Mezz Mezzrow & Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues, Payback Press 1999, p. 16:
- All the time I was stretched out on the infirmary cot I kept looking at the blank walls and seeing the mean, murdering faces of those Southern peckerwoods when they went after Big Six and the others with their knives.
- 1946, Mezz Mezzrow & Bernard Wolfe, Really the Blues, Payback Press 1999, p. 16: