woodman
Part of speech: noun
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: From Middle English woodeman, wodeman, from Old English wudemann, wudumann (“woodman”), equivalent to wood + -man.
Base: wood
Affixes: -man
Inflected forms:
form: woodmen
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Someone who cuts down trees or cuts up, splits, and sells wood.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
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,
The world is full of woodmen who expel
Love’s gentle dryads from the haunts of life,
And vex the nightingales in every dell.
gloss: Someone who lives in the wood and manages it; (by extension) someone who spends time in the woods and has a strong familiarity with that environment.
pos: noun
examples: 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 […]
“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.”
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.
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.
gloss: Someone who makes things from wood.
pos: noun
gloss: Someone who hunts animals in a wood, hunter, huntsman.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: 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,
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,
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.
gloss: Someone who lives in the woods and is considered to be uncivilized or barbaric, a savage.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: […] 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 […]
There between the trees
The prying Fauns and Woodmen dark
And prick-ear’d Satyrs her did mark,
Related words: woodmanship
woodsman
woodsmanship
bushman
bushmanship
outdoorsman
outdoorsmanship
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