Definition of "quockerwodger"

quockerwodger

noun
plural quockerwodgers
1. A wooden toy figure that jerks its limbs when a string is pulled.
  Quotations
  Just hand the old quockerwodger over to me! I'll cut him in half and each part will dance on the rope just as comically as you please!
  1924, Walter Julius Bloem, The Soul of the Moving Picture, page 36
  Lee was a scarecrow, cantankerous, acidulous, arrogant, breathlessly ugly, as jerky as a quockerwodger, but he knew more about the art of war, as it was breathlessly called, than anybody else in America […]
  1969, Donald Barr Chidsey, The War in the South, page 37
2. (figurative, by extension) A puppet; a person whose actions are controlled by somebody else.
  Quotations
  They felt that the fellow was a quockerwodger rather than a politician, an againster rather than a true American, an oppositionist in fundamental things rather than a sincere patriot.
  1944, Morris Allison Bealle, Washington Squirrel Cage, page 9