peckerwood

1. (Southern US, Appalachia, slang) A woodpecker.Examples: "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."; "When I was a boy, I rooted over an old dead sourwood to get some peckerwood eggs."; "There was nothing but a peckerwood on an oak tree."AppalachiaSouthern-USslang

2. (Southern US, Appalachia) A peckerwood sawmill.Examples: "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."; "The Langdale Company's new centralized sawmill and debarker in 1958 constituted a tremendous advance over the old peckerwood technology."AppalachiaSouthern-US

3. (US, offensive, slang, ethnic slur) A white person, especially a Southerner, or one who is ignorant, rustic, or bigoted.Examples: "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."; "Just as prejudiced as a Mississippi peckerwood when it comes to colored people."Synonyms: white person, redneckUSethnicoffensiveslangslur

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