peckawood

Noun

peckerwood (plural peckerwoods)

1. (Appalachia, Southern US, slang) 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.1900 January 15, T. P. Drowne, “A Trip to Fauquier Co., Virginia; With Notes on the Specimens Obtained.”, in Walter F. Webb, editor, The Museum: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Research in Natural...
2. (Appalachia, Southern US) 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.1933 January 7, Traffic Service Corporation, “Serving an essential Industry: Lumber”, in The Traffic World, volume 51, number 1, page 8
3. (US, ethnic, offensive, slang, slur) 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.1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “Don’t Cry, Ma”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 1 (1899–1923: A Nothin’ but a Child), page 16

   Synonyms:

   white person, redneck

4. (slang) A white (male) inmate, especially one who is racist or who is a member of a race-based prison gang.