DICT.TW Dictionary Taiwan

 Sap n.
 1. The juice of plants of any kind, especially the ascending and descending juices or circulating fluid essential to nutrition.
 Note: ☞ The ascending is the crude sap, the assimilation of which takes place in the leaves, when it becomes the elaborated sap suited to the growth of the plant.
 2. The sapwood, or alburnum, of a tree.
 3. A simpleton; a saphead; a milksop. [Slang]
 Sap ball Bot., any large fungus of the genus Polyporus. See Polyporus.
 Sap green, a dull light green pigment prepared from the juice of the ripe berries of the Rhamnus catharticus, or buckthorn. It is used especially by water-color artists.
 Sap rot, the dry rot. See under Dry.
 Sap sucker Zool., any one of several species of small American woodpeckers of the genus Sphyrapicus, especially the yellow-bellied woodpecker (Sphyrapicus varius) of the Eastern United States. They are so named because they puncture the bark of trees and feed upon the sap. The name is loosely applied to other woodpeckers.
 Sap tube Bot., a vessel that conveys sap.

 Wood·peck·er n. Zool. Any one of numerous species of scansorial birds belonging to Picus and many allied genera of the family Picidae.
 Note: ☞ 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.
    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).
    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.
 Woodpecker hornbill Zool., a black and white Asiatic hornbill (Buceros pica) which resembles a woodpecker in color.
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