Also 9 erron. -sour. Obs. or dial. [? f. WOOD sb.1 + SERE a.]
1. A frothy exudation on plants, produced by an insect: = CUCKOO-SPIT2 1; also, the insect itself.
1585. Higins, Junius’ Nomencl., 72/1. Attelabus,… the smallest sort of locustes that be wingless: ye woodseare.
1589. [? Lyly], Pappe w. Hatchet, B ij. Such a warming, as shall make all his deuices as like wood, as his spittle is like wood-sere.
1600. Surflet, Country Farm, I. viii. 39. Spiders, wormes, woodseere and other such like vermine.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 28. That spumeous froth or dew (which here in the North we call Cuckow-Spittle, and, in the South, Woodsear …) looks like a heap of glass-bubbles.
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., I. 135. Insects of mysterious birth … Hid in knots of spittle white … ‘Wood seers’ call’d, that wet declare, So the knowing shepherds say.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 535. The abundance of woodseare and honey dew on herbs indicates fine weather.
attrib. 1599. Cutwode, Caltha Poet., lviii. C 2 b. I will not (as the creeping canker) waste thee, nor as the worm in wodsear time bespew thee.
2. The season in which a tree or shrub will decay or die if its wood be cut.
Erroneously explained as ‘the season for cutting wood.’
1573. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 111. From Maie til October leaue cropping, for why? In wood sere, whatsoeuer thou croppest wil dy. Ibid., 119. The bushes and thorne … In woodsere or sommer cut downe to destroy.
1603. Sir C. Heydon, Jud. Astrol., ii. 43. If wood be cutte after the sunne decline from vs till he come to the equinoctiall, (which time they call woodsere) it will neuer growe againe.
1610. Folkingham, Feudigr., I. ix. 22. All sappie weedes cut downe in Woodseare, and often mowne againe…, their roots will putrifie and rotte.
1851. Gloss. Essex, 14. Woodsere, decayed or hollow pollard, also the season for felling wood.
3. attrib. or adj. Applied to ‘loose, spungy ground’ (Lisle). Hence Wood-seary a., in same sense.
1670. Aubrey, in Miscell. Cur. Subj. (1714), 24. Let us imagine … what kind of Country this was … by the Nature of the Soil, which is a Soure, Woodsere Land, very natural for the Production of Oaks especially.
a. 1722. Lisle, Husb. (1757), 27. Chalk fills up the vacuities of sandy, or wood-seary ground. Ibid., 79. Cold, loose, hollow, wood-sear land.
1759. trans. Duhamel’s Husb., I. viii. (1762), 37. Chalk laid on sandy or wood-seary ground.
1811. T. Davis, Agric. Wilts, 112. The red strong land on the high level parts of the Downs, which was once woodland, and sometimes expressly called ‘wood-sour land.’
