Woodwall

Now dial. Forms: 3 wude-, 3–5 wodewale, 5 -woll, wodwale, 6 wode-, woodw(h)ale, -waule, -weele, 7 -wal, woodhall, 6– woodwall. See also Eng. Dial. Dict. [ME. wodewale, ad. or cogn. w. MLG. wedewale (early Flem. widewael ‘oriolus’) f. wede WOOD sb.¹ + *wale of obscure origin. (Cf. WITWALL, and, for sense 2, HICKWALL.)]

  † 1.  A singing bird: in early quots. of uncertain identity, but prob. (as later) the Golden Oriole, Oriolus galbula, which has a loud flute-like whistle: = WITWALL 1. Obs.

a. 1250.  Owl & Night., 1659 (Cott. MS.). Þrusche & þrostle & wudewale [Jesus MS. wodewale] An fuheles boþe grete & smale.

a. 1310.  in Wright, Lyric P., v. 26. The wilde laveroc ant wolc ant the wodewale.

c. 1325.  Gloss. W. de Bibbesw., in Wright, Voc., 166. Escoter la note de l’oriol [gloss a wodewale].

a. 1366[?].  Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 658. In many places were nyghtyngales, Alpes, fynches, and wodewales, That in her swete song deliten. Ibid., 914. With popyniay, with nyghtyngale, With Chalaundre, and with wodewale.

c. 1430.  Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 23. On fresh braunches syngith the wodwale.

a. 1600.  Robin Hood, ii. in Child, Ballads, III. 91. The woodweele sang, and wold not cease, Amongst the leaues a lyne.

a. 1650.  Eger & Grine, 922, in Furniv. & Hales, Percy Folio, I. 383. The throstlecocke, the Nightingale, The laueracke & the wild woodhall.

1657.  Tomlinson, Renou’s Disp., 24. That Bird which Holerius calls Galbula, that is Woodwall.

a. 1667.  Skinner, Etymol. Ling. Angl. (1671), Witwall vel Woodwall,… galbula.

  2.  A woodpecker; esp. the Green Woodpecker, Gecinus viridis: = WITWALL 2.

  In quot. 1489 trans. OF. bruhier buzzard.

c. 1489.  Caxton, Blanchardyn, xliv. 173. But men saye in a comyn langage that ‘neuer noo wodewoll dyde brede a sperhawke.’

1555.  Eden, Decades (Arb.), 224. Byrdes … sumewhat lyke vnto those which we caule woodwaules, or woodpeckes.

1566.  Act 8 Eliz., c. 15 § 2. For the Head of everie Woodwall Pye Jaye Raven or Kyte, one peny.

1815.  Shaw’s Gen. Zool., IX. 185. [The Green Woodpecker] is called in different parts of England by the various names of Woodspite,… Woodwall, and Poppinjay.

1916.  J. R. Harris, in Contemp. Rev., Feb., 212. In Devonshire a common name for the bird is Woodall.