%ecker%

n. [ From Check, v. t. ] One who checks. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Checkered p. pr. & vb. n. Checkering. ] [ From OF. eschequier a chessboard, F. échiquier. See Check, n., and cf. 3d Checker. ] 1. To mark with small squares like a checkerboard, as by crossing stripes of different colors. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To variegate or diversify with different qualities, colors, scenes, or events; esp., to subject to frequent alternations of prosperity and adversity. [ 1913 Webster ]

Our minds are, as it were, checkered with truth and falsehood. Addison. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. [ OF. eschequier. See Checker, v. t. ] 1. A piece in the game of draughts or checkers. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A pattern in checks; a single check. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. Checkerwork. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ This word is also written chequer. [ 1913 Webster ]

n.; pl. Checkerberries (Bot.) A spicy plant and its bright red berry; the wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens). Also incorrectly applied to the partridge berry (Mitchella repens). [ 1913 Webster ]

n. a perennial purple-flowered wild mallow of West North America (Sidalcea malviflora) that is also cultivated.
Syn. -- wild hollyhock, Sidalcea malviflora. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

n. A board with sixty-four squares of alternate color, used for playing checkers, chess, or draughts. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. 1. Marked with alternate squares or checks of different color or material. [ 1913 Webster ]

Dancing in the checkered shade. Milton. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Diversified or variegated in a marked manner, as in appearance, character, circumstances, etc.; as, a character with a checkered past [ 1913 Webster ]

This checkered narrative. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. pl. [ See Checher, v. ] A game, called also draughts, played on a checkerboard by two persons, each having twelve men (counters or checkers) which are moved diagonally. The game is ended when either of the players has lost all his men, or can not move them. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. Work consisting of or showing checkers varied alternately as to colors or materials. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. Any aggregate of varied vicissitudes. [ 1913 Webster ]

How strange a checkerwork of Providence is the life of man. De Foe. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. One who, or that which, decks or adorns; a coverer; as, a table decker. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A vessel or vehicle which has a deck or decks; -- used esp. in composition; as, a single-decker; a three-decker; a double-decker bus. [ 1913 Webster +PJC ]

n. 1. (Naut.) 1. A man-of-war having two gun decks. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. (a) A tenement house having two families on each floor. [ Local, U. S. ] (b) A biplane aëroplane or kite. [ Colloq. ] [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

3. anything having two decks or levels, as a bus with two levels for passengers. In older vehicles, less often today, the upper deck was open, as on street cars. [ Colloq. ] [ PJC ]

n. (Zool.) A small black and white ladder-backed woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) of Central and Eastern U. S. and Canada. It strongly resembles the hairy woodpecker, but is smaller (6 1/2"), compared with about 9-1/2" for the hairy. It is common in suburban backyards. [ PJC ]

n. (Zool.) The European garden warbler (Sylvia hortensis or Currica, hortensis); -- called also beccafico and greater pettychaps. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. To fleck. Johnson. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (R. C. Ch.) (a) The teaching of Isaac Thomas Hecker (1819-88), which interprets Catholicism as promoting human aspirations after liberty and truth, and as the religion best suited to the character and institutions of the American people. (b) Improperly, certain views or principles erroneously ascribed to Father Hecker in a French translation of Elliott's Life of Hecker. They were condemned as “Americanism” by the Pope, in a letter to Cardinal Gibbons, January 22, 1899. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

n. [ For neck kerchief. ] A kerchief for the neck; -- called also neck handkerchief. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Zool.) The nuthatch. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Zool.) An African bird of the genus Buphaga; the beefeater. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. One who, or that which, pecks; specif., a bird that pecks holes in trees; a woodpecker. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. An instrument for pecking; a pick. Garth. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. The penis; -- an obscene term for the male sexual organ. [ Vulgar ]
Syn. -- penis, cock, prick, tool, peter, dick, shaft [ all but the first considered obscene ]. [ PJC ]

Flower pecker. (Zool.) See under Flower. [ 1913 Webster ]

[ So named after Julius Plücker, a German physicist. ] (Physics) (a) A vacuum tube, used in spectrum analysis, in which the part through which the discharge takes place is a capillary tube, thus producing intense incandescence of the contained gases. (b) Crookes tube. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

n. (Zool.) A European flounder (Hippoglossoides limandoides); -- called also rough dab, long fluke, sand fluke, and sand sucker. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Naut.) A vessel of war carrying guns on three decks. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. A vessel of war carrying guns on two decks. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. (Zool.) Any one of numerous species of scansorial birds belonging to Picus and many allied genera of the family Picidae. [ 1913 Webster ]

☞ These birds have the tail feathers pointed and rigid at the tip to aid in climbing, and a strong chisellike bill with which they are able to drill holes in the bark and wood of trees in search of insect larvae upon which most of the species feed. A few species feed partly upon the sap of trees (see Sap sucker, under Sap), others spend a portion of their time on the ground in search of ants and other insects. [ 1913 Webster ] The most common European species are the greater spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopus major), the lesser spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopus minor), and the green woodpecker, or yaffle (see Yaffle). [ 1913 Webster ] The best-known American species are the pileated woodpecker (see under Pileated), the ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), which is one of the largest known species, the red-headed woodpecker, or red-head (Melanerpes erythrocephalus), the red-bellied woodpecker (Melanerpes Carolinus) (see Chab), the superciliary woodpecker (Melanerpes superciliaris), the hairy woodpecker (Dryobates villosus), the downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens), the three-toed, woodpecker (Picoides Americanus), the golden-winged woodpecker (see Flicker), and the sap suckers. See also Carpintero. [ 1913 Webster ]

Woodpecker hornbill (Zool.), a black and white Asiatic hornbill (Buceros pica) which resembles a woodpecker in color. [ 1913 Webster ]