wood pigeon

noun

"wood-pigeon" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“wood pigeon” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
11
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The common wood pigeon, an Old World species of pigeon, Columba palumbus.

Corpus desk

Index EN-wood-pigeon · wood pigeon · English

wood pigeon · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 11 letters
  • VOW-5 5 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "W" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for wood pigeon
PropertyValue
Headwordwood pigeon
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters11
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “wood pigeon” in English

wood pigeonranks outside the top 100,000 English headwords, in the long tail of specialist, archaic, or seldom-used vocabulary, exactly the territory where a reader stops mid-sentence to double-check spelling.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

wood pigeon is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

wood pigeon has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is wood pigeon, spelled W-O-O-D- -P-I-G-E-O-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    The common wood pigeon, an Old World species of pigeon, Columba palumbus.
  2. 2
    Any of several related species of pigeon in the genus Columba.
  3. 3
    A very large (up to 650 grams) species of pigeon native to New Zealand, Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how wood pigeon appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Idiot-eyed wood pigeons lumbered across the lawn, belly-deep in clover.

Synonyms

culvercushatcommon woodpigeonquistzoozookererukererūkūkūkūkupaNew Zealand pigeon

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "wood pigeon"?
"wood pigeon" is spelled W-O-O-D- -P-I-G-E-O-N.
What does "wood pigeon" mean?
As a noun, "wood pigeon" means: The common wood pigeon, an Old World species of pigeon, Columba palumbus.
What language does "wood pigeon" come from?
"wood pigeon" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list