dial. Also 6 -spike, 9 -spack. [See WOOD sb.1 and SPECK sb.3 Cf. WOODSPITE.] A woodpecker.

1

15[?].  Woodspecke [see SPECK sb.2].

2

1562.  Turner, Herbal, II. 25. Euery suche leafe or pricke [of Juniper] is very like vnto ye ende of the tonge of an hueholl or wodspike.

3

1567.  Golding, Ovid’s Met., XIV. (1593), 330. On the head thereof were garlands store, And eke a woodspecke.

4

1601.  Holland, Pliny, XXX. xvi. II. 399. As many as have about them the bill of a woodspeck when they come to take hony out of the hive, shall not be stung by bees.

5

1847.  Halliwell, Woodspack, a woodpecker.

6

1885.  [see WOODSPITE].

7