Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a fool, a gullible person.

1512		Hickscorner Ciii: For or I came there I was wyse as a woodcock And I thank god as wytte as a haddocke Yet I trust to recouer.
1514		Skelton Agenst Garnesche v line 128: Thow seyst I callyd the a pecok; Thow liist, I callyd the a wodcoke .
1533		J. Heywood Play of Love in Farmer Dramatic Writings (1905) 149: I have known you for a woodcock for this; / Or else like a woodcock I take you amiss.
c.1550		T. Ingelend Disobedient Child Diiii: Yet for all this hath my foolyshe Sonne As wyse a Wodcocke, without any wytte, Despysynge his fathers mynde and opynion, Maryed a wyfe for hym most unfytte.
1562		J. Heywood Fifth Hundred of Epigrams (1867) 181: Strange is the hearyng, for ware or for monye, / To heare a woodcocke cheapen a conye.
1570		Marriage of Wit and Science II i: Lusty like a herringe, with a bell about his necke, Wyse as a woodcocke: as brage as a bodylouse.
1589		Nashe Death and Buriall of Martin Mar-Prelate in Works I (1883–4) 202: You are so afraide of Sarum, that you ween (like a woodcock) euerie thing that girds you comes from thence.
1596		Nashe Have With You to Saffron-Walden in Works III (1883–4) 23: Forsooth it is a garment for the woodcocke Gabriel Haruey, and fooles, ye know, [...] are suted in long coates.
1604		Marston Malcontent Ii i: He’s caught! The woodcock’s head is i’ the noose.
1609		Dekker Gul’s Horne-Booke 4: You [...] should be in danger to depart more like Woodcockes than when you came to me.
1616		W. Haughton English-Men For My Money G 3: Sisters, the Woodcock’s caught, the Fool is cag’d.
1627		J. Taylor ‘An Armado’ in Works (1869) I 91: Traps for vermin, Grinnes for wild Guls, Baytes for tame Fooles, Sprindges for Woodcockes, Pursenets for Connies, Toyles for mad Buckes, Pennes for Geese, Hookes for Gudgeons, Snares for Buzzards, Bridles for old Iades, Curbes for Colts, Pitfals for Bulfinches and Hempen-slips for Asses.
1631		‘Rocke the Cradle, John’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1893) VII:1 164: And now this simple [fond] woodcocke the Cradle is constrain’d to rocke.
c.1640		‘The Great Boobee’ in Euing Broadside Ballads No. 124: Some did say I was a Woodcock, and a great Boobee.
1653		Urquhart (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) I Bk I 103: The bunsellers or cake-makers [...] did injure them most outrageously, calling them [...] jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninnie-hammer fly-catchers, noddiepeak simpletons, turdy-gut, shitten shepherds, and other such like defamatory epithets.
1665		Head Eng. Rogue I 119: He is well skilled in Cards and Dice, which help him to cheat young Gulls [...] and the reason he usually gives for it is, A Woodcock must be pluckt ere he be drest.
1673		J. Wade Vinegar and Mustard A2: Get you gone, and come home as wise as you went (like a Woodcock I had like to say) hey ho.
1680		Character of a Town-Miss in C. Hindley Old Bk Collector’s Misc. 4: Having thus got the Woodcock into the Pitfall.
1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk IV 484: But now I find I was a gull, a wittol, a woodcock, a mere ninny.
1706		Answer to the Fifteen Comforts of Whoring 7: With pietty and winning ways we do assure, / ourselves to bring the Woodcocks to our Lair.
1714		T. Lucas Lives of the Gamesters (1930) 200: Gamesters make it their sole practise and employment to noose unwary woodcocks, and deprive them of their plumes.
1722		‘Whipping-Tom’ Extravagancy of a Lady’s Toilet II 47: The contented Cuckold, her Husband, must walk about like a Woodcock.
1777		Garrick Country Girl III i: I think bubbles are like their brother-wood-cocks.
1838		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 1 Sept. 9/2: ‘Fools are known by looking wise, / As men know woodcocks by their eyes’.
1908		‘O. Henry’ ‘Innocents of Broadway’ Gentle Grafter (1915) 113: We’d get out our spyglasses and watch the woodcocks along the Broadway swamps putting plaster casts on their broken legs.

2. a tailor who has presented a substantial bill [pun on the bird’s long bill].

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 319/1: woodcock, [...] tailleur qui présente une longue note.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

3. (US) pork and beans [? mis-reading of Scotch Woodcock: hard boiled eggs chopped up with anchovy sauce, and then laid on slices of buttered toast].

1866

Night Side of N.Y. 79: Everybody knows that pork and beans goes by the name of ‘woodcock’ in the most aristocratic houses.