pick-a-tree, pickatree Chiefly north.
Also 7 picktree, pictree.
[f. pick- in comb. + tree.]
The great green woodpecker.
| 1615 R. Brathwait Strappado (1878) 134 A nimble Squirrell or a picke-a-tree. 1647 J. Hall Poems i. Satire 62 Pictrees feed the devil nine times a day. 1688 R. Holme Armoury ii. 276/1 A Wood-pecker, or Wood-spite,..in the North of England Pickatrees. 1831 G. Montagu's Ornith. Dict. 372 Pick-a-tree, a name for the Popinjay. 1885 Swainson Prov. Names Birds 100. |