woodcock

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun Any of several woodland birds of the genus Scolopax found in Eurasia, Africa, and North America, having brownish plumage, short legs, and a long bill. The woodcocks are in the same family as the sandpipers and other shorebirds.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun One of two distinct birds of the family Scolopacidæ, closely related to the true snipe (Gallinago).
• noun The large black pileated woodpecker, or logcock, Hylotomus (or Ceophlæus) pileatus. See cut under pileated.
• noun In conchology, a woodcock-shell: more fully called thorny woodcock. Also called Venus'scomb.
• noun A simpleton: in allusion to the facility with which the European woodcock al lows itself to be taken in springes or in nets set for it in the glades.
• noun The American woodcock, Philohela. minor: a book-name.
• noun A woodcock-shell, as Murex haustellum.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Zoöl.) Any one of several species of long-billed limicoline birds belonging to the genera Scolopax and Philohela. They are mostly nocturnal in their habits, and are highly esteemed as game birds.
• noun obsolete Fig.: A simpleton.
• noun The European snipe.
• noun the bellows fish.
• noun the short-eared owl (Asio brachyotus).
• noun the shell of certain mollusks of the genus Murex, having a very long canal, with or without spines.
• noun See under Snipe.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun Any of several wading birds in the genus Scolopax, of the family Scolopacidae, characterised by a long slender bill and cryptic brown and blackish plumage.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun game bird of the sandpiper family that resembles a snipe