puttock

plural puttocks

1. UKregionalAny of several birds of prey including the red kite, buzzard and marsh harrier

   Some like to hounds, some like to Apes, dismayd, / Some like to Puttockes, all in plumes arayd: / All shap't according their conditions […]

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

   1 more example

   Who finds the partridge In the puttock's nest, But will suspect 'twas he that did the deed? " But then Shakespeare knew the habits of partridges and puttocks as well as Milton knew his Bible or his Tacitus.

   1873, Appletons' Journal - Issues 224-249, page 724

2. broadlyA rapacious person who preys on the defenseless.

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   Besides that, as though this pillage and pollage were not rapacious enough, they take in and enclose commons, moors, heaths and other common pastures where out the poor commonalty were want to have all their provisions and feeding for their cattle and (which is more) corn for themselves to live upon; all which are now in most places taken from them by those greedy puttocks to the great impoverishing and utter beggaring of many whole towns

   2014, Susan Doran, Norman Jones, The Elizabethan World, →ISBN, page 440

3. nauticalThe futtock.