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  1. yaffle love

Definitions

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. The green woodpecker, Gecinus viridis: from its loud laughing notes. Also yaffil, yaffler, yaffingale. See cut under popinjay.
  2. n. An armful.
  3. n. A pile of codfish to be carried from the flakes to the storehouse.

Wiktionary

  1. n. UK the European green woodpecker, Picus viridis

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Zoöl.) The European green woodpecker (Picus viridis syn. Genius viridis). It is noted for its loud laughlike note. Called also eccle, hewhole, highhoe, laughing bird, popinjay, rain bird, yaffil, yaffler, yaffingale, yappingale, yackel, and woodhack.

Examples

  • “If a corpse be kept over a Sunday another death will occur before the week is out; should a big bumble-bee enter the window, a guest may be expected; and when the woodpecker, commonly called the yaffle, laughs, they say the rain is coming.”

    English Villages

  • “I might start using it in my ESL classes so that a new generation of Koreans will know the proper English terminology for an 'armful of something' is a 'yaffle'.”

    Cockles, no Mussels, Alive, Alive, O

  • “Behind the hill, behind the trees, the green woodpecker – the yaffle – shouts his mocking, laugh-like call which in country weather lore is a sure sign of rain.”

    The Guardian: Country diary: Wenlock Edge

  • “Green-yellow, bursts from the copse the laughing yaffle;”

    Love in the Valley

  • “From above the hedges the sleepy cows looked down; a yaffle laughed a field or two away; in the sycamores, which had come out before their time, the bees hummed.”

    Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works

  • “a rattle, what a yaffle — as they call the woodpecker, the laughing bird that flits from tree to tree.”

    Between the Acts

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. yaffingale
  1. yaffler

reverse dictionary (21)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. whetile
  2. hewhole
  3. yaffil
  4. yaffingale
  1. yaffler
  2. eccle
  3. green woodpecker
  4. high-hoe
  1. galley-bird
  2. woodwale
  3. nickle
  4. rain bird
  1. snapper
  2. sprite
  3. whitile
  4. wood sucker
  1. woodchuck
  2. woodhack
  3. woodknacker
  4. woodwall
  1. yockel

tags (3)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. bird
  1. nickname
  1. cvcccv

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘yaffle’.

Comments

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  • chained_bear "The sharp cry of a woodpecker—the kind Jamie called a yaffle—echoed deep in the woods and then fell silent."
    —Diana Gabaldon, The Fiery Cross (NY: Bantam Dell, 2001), 165 Jan 18, 2010

  • fbharjo rainbird Dec 2, 2008

  • yarb The Formative Minds
    are at it again -
    exchanging sterile
    platitudes, students
    sip Pils, wear daft clothes.

    One of them yaffles
    in gormless Scotch tones
    treating of ball games
    and cheeky rude pranks -
    he's a fun person.

    - Peter Reading, 5x5x5x5x5, 1983 Jul 4, 2008

  • chained_bear Also a Newfoundland word describing a pile of seal pelts stacked to be dragged back to the ship. Dec 10, 2007

  • reesetee I think it aptly describes that goofy little crest some woodpeckers have. ;-) Sep 14, 2007

  • trivet lovely! Sep 14, 2007

  • reesetee The Green Woodpecker, Picus viridis, from Europe and western Asia. See also: popinjay.
    Sep 14, 2007

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‘yaffle’ has been looked up 1362 times, loved by 1 person, added to 12 lists, commented on 7 times, and has a Scrabble score of 15.