peckerwood

[pek-er-woo d] /ˈpɛk ərˌwʊd/
noun
1.
Midland and Southern U.S. woodpecker.
2.
Southern U.S. Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. poor white.
adjective
3.
Southern U.S. small or insignificant:
He makes a living farming and running a peckerwood sawmill.
Origin
1825-35, Americanism; pecker + wood1; inversion of woodpecker
Word Origin and History for peckerwood
n.

1859, U.S. Southern black dialectal inversion of woodpecker; in folklore, taken as the type of white folks (1929) and symbolically contrasted with blackbird.

Slang definitions & phrases for peckerwood

peckerwood

noun
  1. A poor Southern white, esp a farmer; cracker, redneck
  2. Any white Southern man: Any white man from the South is a ''peckerwood''

[1929+ esp black; fr rural black use of the red-headed woodpecker, with dialect inversion of the word elements, as a symbol for white persons in contrast with the blackbird as a symbol for themselves; the red head may be the semantic base, suggesting redneck]