yaffle
English edit
Pronunciation edit
Etymology 1 edit
Imitative of the bird's cry.
Noun edit
yaffle (plural yaffles)
- (UK, dialectal) The European green woodpecker, Picus viridis.
- Synonyms: yaffingale, yaffler, woodall
- 1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview, published 2001, page 114:
- I remember the cry of the wood-peckers, or yaffils, as we call them in that country, going to roost in a pale autumnal evening […] .
- 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (Parade's End), Penguin, published 2012, page 119:
- “‘Punched that rotton strap,’ he goes on saying, ‘like a gret ol' yaffle punchin' a 'ollow log!’”
Translations edit
green woodpecker — see green woodpecker
Verb edit
yaffle (third-person singular simple present yaffles, present participle yaffling, simple past and past participle yaffled)
- (intransitive) Of the green woodpecker: to make its distinctive cry.
- 2005, Tim Kendall, Strange Land, page 13:
- Green woodpecker is not without options. Each year the builder comes to fix the house of the wooden roof. Green woodpecker watches then flies away, yaffling.
Etymology 2 edit
Verb edit
yaffle (third-person singular simple present yaffles, present participle yaffling, simple past and past participle yaffled)
- (slang, obsolete) To eat.
- 2017, Vanessa Kelly, Shana Galen, Anna Campbell, Kate Noble, A Grosvenor Square Christmas:
- At the mention of yaffling—the cant for eating—Ewan felt a pang of hunger in his belly.
- 2019, Ellie Jacobs, Workhouse Waif: A Victorian Romance:
- You're growing squab yaffling our food and then lazing in the hallway.
References edit
- John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary