peckerwood

Etymology

Inversion of woodpecker. Application to white people is due to the perception that the woodpecker is a symbol of whites, whereas the crow or blackbird is a symbol of blacks.

noun

1. (Southern US, Appalachia, slang) A woodpecker.
   On the morning of the next, one of Mr. White's daughters came into the house to inform me that there was a "peckerwood" in a tree in the yard. I immediately took my gun and went out to investigate thinking that perhaps it was a Pileolated Woodpecker, a bird I wanted to obtain. 1900-01-15, T. P. Drowne, “A Trip to Fauquier Co., Virginia; With Notes on the Specimens Obtained.”, in Walter F. Webb, editor, The Museum: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Research in Natural Science, volume 6, number 3, Albion, page 38
   When I was a boy, I rooted over an old dead sourwood to get some peckerwood eggs. 1953, Jesse Stuart, The Good Spirit of Laurel Ridge, New York: McGraw-Hill, →LCCN, →OL
   There was nothing but a peckerwood on an oak tree. 1992, Robert Morgan, The Mountains Won't Remember Us: And Other Stories, New York: Scribner, published 2000, →OL, page 40
2. (Southern US, Appalachia) A peckerwood sawmill.
   Throughout this territory are mills of every variety and size, from the small "peckerwood" tractor mill capable of cutting only a few thousand feet of lumber per day to the world's largest pine lumber mill with a capacity of more than one million feet per day. 1933-01-07, Traffic Service Corporation, “Serving an essential Industry: Lumber”, in The Traffic World, volume 51, number 1, page 8
   The Langdale Company's new centralized sawmill and debarker in 1958 constituted a tremendous advance over the old peckerwood technology. 2002, John E. Lancaster, Judge Harley and His Boys: The Langdale Story, 1st edition, Macon: Mercer University Press, →OL, page 222
3. (US, offensive, slang) A white person, especially a Southerner, or one who is ignorant, rustic, or bigoted.
   Just as prejudiced as a Mississippi peckerwood when it comes to colored people. 1967, John Oliver Killens, 'Sippi, New York: Trident Press, →LCCN, →OL, page 50
4. (prison slang) A white (male) inmate, especially one who is racist or who is a member of a race-based prison gang.