woodman
See also: Woodman
English
editEtymology
editFrom Middle English woodeman, wodeman, from Old English wudemann, wudumann (“woodman”), equivalent to wood -man.
Pronunciation
editNoun
editwoodman (plural woodmen)
- (obsolete) Someone who hunts animals in a wood, hunter, huntsman.
- 1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vi]:
- You, Polydote, have proved best woodman and
Are master of the feast: Cadwal and I
Will play the cook and servant; ’tis our match:
The sweat of industry would dry and die,
But for the end it works to.
- c. 1611, John Fletcher, The Woman’s Prize, Act IV, Scene 3, in Comedies and Tragedies Written by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, Gentlemen, London: H. Robinson & H. Moseley, 1647, p. 116,[1]
- How daintily, and cunningly you drive me
- Up like a Deere to’th toyle, yet I may leape it,
- And what’s the woodman then?
- 1636, Robert Sanderson, Ad Aulam. The Fourth Sermon, Beuvoyr, July, 1636 in XXXVI Sermons, London, 8th edition, 1689, p. 413,[2]
- And to get the Mastery over they self in great matters, it will behove thee to exercise this Discipline first in lesser things: as he that would be a skilful Wood-man, will exercise himself thereunto first by shooting sometimes at a dead mark.
- Someone who cuts down trees or cuts and sells wood, lumberjack, woodcutter.
- 1718, Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer[3], London: Bernard Lintot, Book 16, p. 267:
- As thro’ the shrilling Vale, or Mountain Ground,
The Labours of the Woodman’s Axe resound;
Blows following Blows are heard re-echoing wide,
While crackling Forests fall on ev’ry side.
Thus echo’d all the Fields with loud Alarms,
So fell the Warriors, and so rung their Arms.
- 1843, George Pope Morris, “Woodman, Spare That Tree”, in The Deserted Bride; and Other Poems[4], New York: Appleton, page 39:
- Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it shelter’d me,
And I’ll protect it now.
’Twas my forefather’s hand
That placed it near his cot;
There, woodman, let it stand,
Thy axe shall harm it not!
- 1862, Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Woodman and the Nightingale” (written in 1818 and published posthumously) in Richard Garnett (editor), Relics of Shelley, London: Edward Moxon, p. 79,[5]
- The world is full of woodmen who expel
- Love’s gentle dryads from the haunts of life,
- And vex the nightingales in every dell.
- Someone who lives in the wood and manages it; a woodsman; (by extension) someone who spends time in the woods and has a strong familiarity with that environment.
- 1800, William Wordsworth, “Poems on the Naming of Places V”, in Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems[6], volume 2, London: Longman & Rees, page 195:
- Our walk was far among the ancient trees:
There was no road, nor any wood-man’s path,
But the thick umbrage, checking the wild growth
Of weed and sapling […]
- 1908, Robert Barr, chapter 14, in Cardillac[7], 4th edition, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, published 1909:
- “It is strange,” muttered Cardillac, “that so loud a roar in the forest at night should give such little indication of direction. I suppose a true woodman could not only point towards the spot, but might estimate the distance as well. I seem to be a very fool of the forest.”
- 1990 July 15, Pamela Redmond Satran, “Ireland with kids: The fairy tale comes alive”, in Washington Post:
- One afternoon, I went with Mrs. Salter-Townshend on a tour of all her rental properties, which ranged from a woodman’s cottage on the old Somerville estate to a tower in the harbor-front castle.
- 1997, J. M. Coetzee, chapter 3, in Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life, New York: Penguin, page 15:
- The second examination is for a woodman’s badge. To pass, he is required to light a fire, using no paper and striking no more than three matches.
- (obsolete) Someone who lives in the woods and is considered to be uncivilized or barbaric, a savage.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 40:
- […] yonder in that faithfull wildernesse
Huge monsters haunt, and many dangers dwell;
Dragons, and Minotaures, and feendes of hell,
And many wilde woodmen, which robbe & rend
All traveilers […]
- 1909, Maurice Hewlett, “Leto’s Child”, in Artemision: Idylls and Songs[8], London: Elkin Mathews, page 30:
- There between the trees
The prying Fauns and Woodmen dark
And prick-ear’d Satyrs her did mark,
- Someone who makes things from wood. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
See also
editCategories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms suffixed with -man
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English nouns with irregular plurals
- English terms with obsolete senses
- English terms with quotations
- en:People