peckerwood
English · Thesaurus
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peckerwood
- /ˈpɛkɚwʊd/ US
- /ˈpɛkəwʊd/ UK
Where it comes from
Inversion of woodpecker. Application to white people is due to the perception that the woodpecker is a symbol of whites, whereas the crow or blackbird is a symbol of blacks.
noun peckerwoods · peckawood
- A woodpecker. On the morning of the next, one of Mr. White's daughters came into the house to inform me that there was a "peckerwood" in a tree in the yard. I immediately took my gun and went out to investigate thinking that perhaps it was a Pileolated Woodpecker, a bird I wanted to obtain.
- A peckerwood sawmill. Throughout this territory are mills of every variety and size, from the small "peckerwood" tractor mill capable of cutting only a few thousand feet of lumber per day to the world's largest pine lumber mill with a capacity of more than one million feet per day.
-
A white person, especially a Southerner, or one who is ignorant, rustic, or bigoted.
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.
Similar: white person, redneck
- A white (male) inmate, especially one who is racist or who is a member of a race-based prison gang.
Talk about this word "peckerwood." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/peckerwood. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. peckerwood. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/peckerwood "peckerwood." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/peckerwood.Cite this
@misc{peckerwood_2026,
title = {peckerwood},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/peckerwood},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
