dial. Also -el, -il. [Echoic of the laughing cry of the bird: cf. YAFFLE v. (See also HICKWALL.)] The green woodpecker.
1792. Charlotte Smith, Desmond, I. 173. I remember the cry of the wood-peckers, or yaffils, as we call them in that country [sc. Kent].
1802. Montagu, Ornith. Dict. (1831), 385. Green Woodpecker…. Yappingale. Yaffle or Yaffler.
1856. Kingsley, South Wind, ii. Poems (1889), 292. O blessed yaffil laughing loud!
1893. D. Jordan & Jean A. Owen, Forest Tithes, 126. On their grey trunks the yaffle shins about, yells, laughs, and yikes to his heart’s content.
