puckeridge
(ˈpʌkərɪdʒ)
[Origin obscure: connected with puck-bird; see Note s.v. puck n.2]
A name of the nightjar; also, a disease of cattle attributed to the stroke or bite of the nightjar.
| 1789 G. White Selborne, Fern-Owl (1875) 334 The country people have a notion that the fern-owl, or churn-owl, or eve⁓jarr, which they also call a puckeridge, is very injurious to weanling calves, by inflicting, as it strikes at them, the fatal distemper, known to cow-leeches by the name of puckeridge. 1885 [see puck n.2 1]. |