feather
Plural: feathers
Noun
- the light horny waterproof structure forming the external covering of birds
- turning an oar parallel to the water between pulls
- A branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display.
- Long hair on the lower legs of a dog or horse, especially a draft horse, notably the Clydesdale breed. Narrowly only the rear hair.
- One of the fins or wings on the shaft of an arrow.
- A longitudinal strip projecting from an object to strengthen it, or to enter a channel in another object and thereby prevent displacement sideways or rotationally but permit motion lengthwise.
- Kind; nature; species (from the proverbial phrase "birds of a feather").
- One of the two shims of the three-piece stone-splitting tool known as plug and feather or plug and feathers; the feathers are placed in a borehole and then a wedge is driven between them, causing the stone to split.
- The angular adjustment of an oar or paddle-wheel float, with reference to a horizontal axis, as it leaves or enters the water.
- Anything petty or trifling; a whit or jot.
- Partridges and pheasants, as opposed to rabbits and hares (called fur).
- A junction indicator attached to a colour-light signal at an angle, which lights up, typically with four white lights in a row, when a diverging route is set up.
- A faint edge.
Verb
Verb Forms: feathered, feathering, feathers
- To cover or adorn with feathers; to grow feathers.
- join tongue and groove, in carpentry
- cover or fit with feathers
- turn the paddle; in canoeing
- turn the oar, while rowing
- grow feathers
- To cover or furnish with feathers; (when of an arrow) to fletch.
- To adorn, as if with feathers; to fringe.
- To arrange in the manner or appearance of feathers.
- To rotate the oars while they are out of the water to reduce wind resistance.
- To streamline the blades of an aircraft's propeller by rotating them perpendicular to the axis of the propeller when the engine is shut down so that the propeller does not windmill during flight.
- To finely shave or bevel an edge.
- To intergrade or blend the pixels of an image with those of a background or neighboring image.
- Of written or printed ink: to take on a blurry appearance as a result of spreading through the receiving medium.
- To render light as a feather; to give wings to.
- To enrich; to exalt; to benefit.
- To tread, as a cockerel.
- To move the cue back and forth along the bridge in preparation for striking the cue ball.
- To accidentally touch the cue ball with the tip of the cue when taking aim.
- To touch lightly, like (or as if with) a feather.
- To move softly, like a feather.
Examples
- A clever player might ’feather’ the board with small words to set up a bingo.
- After striking the bird, the pilot feathered the damaged left engine’s propeller.
- The stylist feathered my hair.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English feþer, from Old English feþer, from Proto-West Germanic *feþru, from Proto-Germanic *feþrō, from Proto-Indo-European *péth₂r̥ (“feather, wing”), from *peth₂- (“to fly”).
See also West Frisian fear, German Low German Fedder, Dutch veder, veer, German Feder, Yiddish פֿעדער (feder), Danish fjer, Swedish fjäder, Icelandic fjöður, Faroese fjøður, Norwegian Bokmål fjær, fjør, Norwegian Nynorsk fjør. Also Ancient Greek πέτομαι (pétomai), Albanian shpend (“bird”), Latin penna, Old Armenian թիռ (tʻiṙ).
The sense correlated with splines and keys (sense 4) probably reflects analogy with the fletching sense (sense 3).
Synonyms
feathering, fledge, plumage, plume, square, feathers, horsefeathers, pluma
Antonyms
Scrabble Score: 13
feather: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordfeather: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
feather: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary