dowitcher

[prettygoodword]

dowitcher (DOU-ich-er) - n., any of three long-billed and long-legged migratory wading birds of genus Limnodromus, related to snipe and sandpipers.


The two species that breed in North America are the long-billed dowitcher and, below, the short-billed dowitcher:


Thanks, WikiMedia!

A very short bill, yes indeed. The other species is the Asian dowitcher, which breed in Siberia and Manchuria. The name is an Americanism, first recorded in 1841, from an uncertain Northern Iroquoian language -- compare Mohawk tawístawis and Oneida tawístawe.

---L.

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

I found this claim of Anglo-German (by way of Pennsylvania Deutsch) etymology at All About Birds:

Early American ornithologist Elliott Coues believed that the word dowitcher derived from a hunters’ name for the bird, “German snipe”—as opposed to “English snipe,” which referred to the bird we now know as Wilson’s Snipe. In Pennsylvania Dutch, an American dialect of German, “Duitscher” is the word for “German.”

Source: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Short-billed_Dowitcher/overview#

[prettygoodword]

Huh! That's almost plausible.

FWIW, OED agrees with (and is definitive about) the Iroquoian origin ... though it's also unaware of the Asian species.

(TIL Cherokee is an Iroquoian language -- the only surviving Southern Iroquoian language, and an endangered one at that.)

[full_metal_ox]

If dowitchers were to develop the fierce hierarchical behavior of domestic chickens, would the alpha female emeritus of a large flock be the Dowitcher Empress?

[prettygoodword]

Hold still so I can slap you with this large salmon...