woodpecker

«woodpecker» in Mova's school dictionary: a bird that clings to tree trunks and hammers into the… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a woodpecker, woodpeckers)

meaning for a pupil

A woodpecker is a bird that clings to tree trunks and hammers into the wood with its strong, sharp beak to find insects and to make nest holes. tree →

sense in the lessons

In nature lessons woodpeckers show adaptations: a strong beak like a chisel, a thick skull that protects the brain, stiff tail feathers to lean on, and a very long sticky tongue to pull out grubs. They also drum on trees to talk to other woodpeckers. In Britain you may see the great spotted woodpecker and the green woodpecker. Phrases: «drumming», «peck holes», «great spotted woodpecker».

examples

• We heard a woodpecker drumming on the oak tree. tree →
• The woodpecker pecked a hole for its nest. tree →
• A woodpecker's tongue is long enough to wrap round its skull. tree →
• The green woodpecker hops on lawns to eat ants. tree →
• Woodpeckers do not get headaches because of their special skulls. tree →
• Woody Woodpecker is a cartoon bird. tree →
• The woodpecker held on to the trunk with its stiff tail. tree →
• After they had gone some way, they passed a tree-stump, on which a bright coloured woodpecker was tapping. tree →

note

Plural «woodpeckers». One word: wood + pecker. There are no woodpeckers in Australia, New Zealand or Madagascar. The drumming is mostly a signal, not feeding.

In the corpora

• Woodpeckers hammer wood up to about 20 times a second to find grubs, dig nests and drum to claim a territory.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «woodpecker» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.