yaffle

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈjafl̩/

  Rhymes: -æfəl

Imitative of the bird's cry.

yaffle (plural yaffles)

1. (UK, dialectal) The European green woodpecker, Picus viridis.

   Synonyms: yaffingale, yaffler, woodall

   • 1792, Charlotte Smith, Desmond, Broadview 2001, p. 114:

     I remember the cry of the wood-peckers, or yaffils, as we call them in that country, going to roost in a pale autumnal evening […] .

   • 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not…, Penguin 2012 (Parade's End), p. 119:

     “‘Punched that rotton strap,’ he goes on saying, ‘like a gret ol' yaffle punchin' a 'ollow log!’”

yaffle (third-person singular simple present yaffles, present participle yaffling, simple past and past participle yaffled)

1. (intransitive) Of the green woodpecker: to make its distinctive cry.
   • 2005, Tim Kendall, Strange Land (page 13)

     Green woodpecker is not without options. Each year the builder comes to fix the house of the wooden roof. Green woodpecker watches then flies away, yaffling.

yaffle (third-person singular simple present yaffles, present participle yaffling, simple past and past participle yaffled)

1. (slang, obsolete) To eat.
   • 2017, Vanessa Kelly, Shana Galen, Anna Campbell, Kate Noble, A Grosvenor Square Christmas

     At the mention of yaffling—the cant for eating—Ewan felt a pang of hunger in his belly.

   • 2019, Ellie Jacobs, Workhouse Waif: A Victorian Romance

     You're growing squab yaffling our food and then lazing in the hallway.

• 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

• Laffey