An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Wiedehopf

by Friedrich Kluge

Wiedehopf, masculine, ‘hoopoe’ (bird), from the equivalent Middle High German witehopfe, masculine, Old High German wituhopfo (-hoffo), masculine, literally ‘forest hopper.’ Old High German witu, ‘timber,’ equivalent to Anglo-Saxon wudu, English wood (compare Kramtsvogel), is primitively allied to Old Irish fid, ‘tree’ (or Greek φιτρός, ‘block of wood, log’). Compare hüpfen.