pecker

Noun

pecker (plural peckers)

1. Someone who or something that pecks, striking or piercing in the manner of a bird's beak or bill, particularly
   • Two studies of British civil servants, for example, suggest that those at the top of the heap are less stressed than those near the bottom. Work on other species, too, indicates that when it comes to pecking orders, the peckees are more stressed than the peckers.2003 October 18, “Stress Test”, in The Economist
2. (regional, uncommon) Any tool used in a pecking fashion, particularly kinds of hoes or pickaxes.
   • The women with short peckers or parers,... of a foote long and about fiue inches in breadth: doe onely breake the vpper part of the ground to rayse vp the weedes, grasse, & old stubbes of corne stalkes with their rootes... For their corne,... with a pecker they make a hole, wherein they put foure...1588, Thomas Hariot, A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, sig. C2
   • Let sturdy youths their pointed peckers ply,
     Till the rais'd roots loose on the surface lie.1782, J. Scott, Poetical Works, page 119
3. (uncommon) Any machine or machine part moving in a pecking fashion, particularly
   • The upper end of the finger o carries a "pecker" p, which consists of a hardened steel piece with a V edge. This pecker is engaged by any one of several steps or notches in a stepped block m carried by the rocking lever l.1922, Whittaker's Mechanical Engineer's Pocket Book, page 368
4. (obsolete, uncommon) A picker, a shuttle-driver: the device which moves backwards and forwards in the shuttle-box to drive the shuttle through the warp.
   • The shuttle... receives its motion from the peckers connected with cords pulled by the pecking lever.1807, Thomas Johnson, British Patent № 3023 (1856), section 5
   • When the shaft [of the draw-boy] rocks from side to side of the machine, it will carry the pecker... with it.1878, Alfred Barlow, The History and Principles of Weaving by Hand and by Power, x. 136
5. (historical, uncommon) A kind of V-shaped telegraphic relay.
   • Click, click, click, the pecker is at work.1858 June 13, H.C.F. Jenkin, letter in Papers (1887), volume I, page lxxxvi
   • Pecker, the small cylindrical pin which rises and falls in scanning the holes punched in a slip corresponding to the coding of the message.1940, Chambers's Technical Dictionary, 621/1
6. A bird, particularly a member of the group including the woodpeckers, flowerpeckers, oxpeckers, and berrypeckers.
   • The Titmouse, and the Peckers hungry Brood.1697, Publius Virgilius Maro, translated by John Dryden, Georgics, section IV
   • By far the greater number of modern birds belong to the... orders of the perchers, the peckers, and the birds of prey.1884 January, George Allen, Longman's Magazine, page 294
7. (UK, obsolete, regional) An eater, a diner.
   • He's a rare pecker.1862, C.C. Robinson, The Dialect of Leeds & Its Neighbourhood, page 383
   • Peck... A hearty eater is generally called ‘a rare pecker’.1873, Slang Dictionary
8. (UK, regional) A bird's beak.
   • Pecker, a bird's bill1891, G. Sweetman, A Glossary of Words used by the rural population in the parish and neighbourhood of Wincanton, Somerset
   • Q. What does a bird peck its food up with?... [Wiltshire] Beak, pecker.1967, H. Orton & M. F. Wakelin, A Survey of English dialects B, volume 4

   Synonyms:

   bill, neb, nib

9. (US, regional, slang) A penis; cock, dick.
   • The penis... pecker.1902, J. S. Farmer, W. E. Henley, Slang and Its Analogues, London, V. 289/2
   • Ought to stand on Times Square with my pecker in my hand and piss in the gutter.1936, Henry Miller, “The Tailor Shop”, in Black Spring, Paris: The Obelisk Press […], →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, 1963, →ISBN, pages 125–126

   Synonyms:

   penis

10. (UK, broadly, colloquial) A nose.

    Synonyms:

    nose

11. (UK, broadly, colloquial) Spirits, nerve, courage.
    • Mr. King... misstated the fact in saying that he had put a piece of lighted paper to the master's nose while asleep in that house; it was his hot pipe that he applied to the sleeper's nostrils, at the same time crying: Come, old chap, keep your pecker up.1845 September 15, Times, London, 8/3
    • Pecker, ‘keep your Pecker up’,... literally, keep your beak and head well up, ‘never say die’.1873, Slang Dictionary

    Synonyms:

    courage