Forms: 4–5 feder, -ir, -yr, 6 fedder, 4 feþer, 4–6 fether, 6– feather. Also with prefix 1 ȝefiðerian; pa. pple. (senses 1, 2) 3 iviðered, 4 yfeþered, 6 yfethred. [OE. ȝefiðrian, f. the sb., to which it has been assimilated in form from 14th c.]
I. To cover or furnish with feathers.
† 1. trans. To give wings to; to ‘wing’ for flight, lit. and fig. Obs.
c. 888. K. Ælfred, Boeth., xxxvi. § 1. Ic sceal ærest þin mod ȝefiॠerian.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VII. 223. I not by what craft he feþered his feet and his hondes, for he wolde flee in Dedalus his wise.
1534. Whittington, trans. Tullyes Offices, III. (1540), 160. Oh stable truthe: faythfulnesse fethered to flye to heuen.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, II. 139. Horse slaughter’d horse, Need feather’d flight.
1634. Ford, P. Warbeck, III. i.
| The Cornish … flew | |
| Feather’d by rage, and hearten’d by presumption. |
a. 1657. R. Loveday, Letters (1662), 204. The Polonian Story, which perhaps may feather some tedious hours.
c. 1825. Beddoes, Poems, The Second Brother, II. ii.
| Varin. Blessings of mine | |
| Feather your speed! and my strong prayers make breaches. |
2. To fit (an arrow) with a feather.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 60. Ase earewe þæt is iviðered.
c. 1380. Sir Ferumb., 2728. Dartes y-feþered wiþ bras.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 942.
| And ten brode arrowes held he there, | |
| Of which five in his honde were, | |
| But they were shaven well and dight, | |
| Nocked and feathered aright. |
1530. Palsgr., 547/1. I feder a shafte, as a fletcher doth.
a. 1577. Gascoigne, Wks. (1587), 185. Be his flights yfethred from the goose Or peacocks quils.
1599. Hayward, 1st Pt. Hen. IV., 60. The King having feathered these arrowes against his owne brest, passed foorth [etc.].
1668. Dryden, Evening’s Love, I. ii. Cupid’s arrow was well feathered.
1712. Arbuthnot, John Bull, III. v. An arrow feathered with his own wing.
1811. Byron, Sardanapalus, IV. i. 90.
| A huge quiver rose | |
| With shaft-heads feather’d from the eagle’s wing. |
fig. a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, xvii. 16. His aruys, that is his apostles … for thai ere feþerid wiþ vertus.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. XXIII. 117.
| He bar a bowe in hus honde · and manye brode arwes, | |
| Were fetherede with faire by-heste · and many a fals treuthe. |
1631. Massinger, Believe as You List, II. ii.
| All arrowes in thy quiver feathered with | |
| Sclanders. |
1665. J. Spencer, Vulg. Prophecies, 77. Language, feathered with soft and delicate phrases, and pointed with pathetical accents.
1721. Ramsay, Cupid thrown into S. Sea, iv. With transfers a’ his darts were feather’d.
1835. Lytton, Rienzi, III. iii. Whose arrow was not feathered by sadness.
3. To clothe or provide with feathers; to furnish with plumage; to deck or adorn with, or as with, feathers; to form a feather-like covering or adornment for.
1483. Cath. Angl., 124/2. To Fedyr, pennare, plumare.
1525. Ld. Berners, Froiss., III. xlii. 54/2. These gentell byrdes had pyte on hym and fethered hym agayne.
1618. N. Field, Amends for Ladies, V. ii. A branch of willow feathering his hat.
1622. Bacon, Hen. VII., 111. The King cared not to plume his Nobilitie and People, to feather himselfe.
1810. Scott, Lady of L., I. xiv.
| A wildering forest feathered o’er | |
| His ruined sides and summit hoar. |
1833. Ht. Martineau, Cinnamon & Pearls, i. 19. With more than her usual fancy did she feather with cocoa-nut leaves the poles of bamboo.
a. 1843. Southey, Doctor, iii. (1862), 14. A craggy hill, feathered with birch, sheltered it from the north.
1864. Burton, Scot Abr., I. iii. 140. He sought to feather his hat with … French plumage.
1878. Bell, Gegenbauer’s Comp. Anat., 134. In Filigrana the stalk of the operculum retains some of its primitive character by being feathered.
† b. To decorate (a person) with the projecting feather of an arrow; hence to pierce, wound. Also, To bury (an arrow) up to the feather. Obs.
1415. Political Poems (Rolls), III. 125.
| With gronyng grete thei felle to grownde, | |
| Here sydes federed whan thei gone fele. |
1577. Harrison, England, II. xvi. (1877), I. 279. An other [arrow should haue beene] fethered in his bowels.
1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 38. A man of meane estate, whome disdainefull Fortune had abased, intending to make hir power prodigall in his misfortunes, being feathered with Cupides bolt, were snared in the beautie of a Queene, should he rather die than discouer his amors?
† c. Pass. To be covered with white waves.
1749. F. Smith, Voy. Disc. N.-W. Pass., II. 251. The Sea was feathered with a strong Tide, from the Northward.
4. refl. and intr. for refl. Of a bird: To get its feathers, to become fledged. ? Obs. exc. dial.
c. 1450. Bk. Hawkyng, in Rel. Ant., I. 298. Thou seist hym [your young hawk] hym begyn to feder.
1486. Bk. St. Albans, A ij a. When they bene vnclosed and begynneth to feder any thyng of lengthe.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb., IV. (1586), 169. They that meane to fatte Pigions … doo sever them when they be newly feathered.
1659. D. Pell, Improv. Sea, 118. The Vulture … beholds her young to thrive and feather.
1790. A. Wilson, Discons. Wren, Poet. Wks. (1846), 98.
| A’ safe and weel about our nest, | |
| An’ them quiet feath’ring laid! |
5. To cover with feathers, a. internally: To line with feathers, in phr. To feather one’s nest: to avail oneself of opportunities for laying up wealth, to enrich oneself.
1583. Stubbes, Anat. Abus., II. (1882), 38. By this meanes … they feather their nests well inough.
1612. T. Taylor, Comm. Titus i. 7. Yet all this worke is neglected, that his owne neast may be well feathered.
1658. Osborn, Jas. I., Wks. (1673), 514. Coming so near after such an unadvised scatterer as King James, he might have feathered his Family better than he did.
1753. Smollett, Ct. Fathom (1784), 41/2. The more he considered this subject, he thought he saw the more reason to attribute the damage he had sustained to the machinations of his spouse; who, he did not doubt, was disposed to feather her own nest, at the expence of him and his heirs.
1876. F. E. Trollope, A Charming Fellow, III. xii. 149. Old Maxfield has feathered his nest very considerably.
b. externally: To coat with feathers; more fully, To tar and feather (see TAR v.).
1774. Foote, Cozeners, III. Wks. 1799, II. 194. You wanted to send me to be feathered abroad.
1829. W. H. Maxwell, Stories of Waterloo, F. Kennedy, 205. The pleasant part of the population were amusing themselves nightly in carding middlemen, and feathering tithe proctors.
† 6. Of a cock: To cover with outspread feathers; to tread. Obs.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Nun’s Pr. T., 357.
| He fetherid Pertelote twenty tyme, | |
| And trad as ofte, er that it was pryme. |
1700. Dryden, Fables, Cock & Fox, 70.
| Ardent in Love, outragious in his Play, | |
| He feather’d her a hundred times a Day. |
† 7. ? To touch with or as with a feather; to touch lightly. Obs. rare–1.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 200. Þer ich feðri on, awurðeð tene oðer tweolue.
II. To present or give (to anything) the appearance of feathers.
8. intr. To move, wave or float like feathers; to grow, extend in a feathery form.
1770. T. Whately, Mod. Gardening, 197. A noble wood crowns the top, and feathers down to the bottom of a large, oval, swelling hill.
1797. G. Colman, Br. Grius, Maid of Moor, iii.
| Neglected mansion!—for, ’tis said, | |
| When e’er the snow came feathering down, | |
| Four barbed steeds,—from the Bull’s head, | |
| Carried thy master up to town. |
1820. Scott, Monast., ii. Little patches of wood and copse … feathering naturally up the beds of empty torrents.
1857. S. Osborn, Quedah, xxiv. 356. The graceful palm, the plantain, and pandanus, hang round it, here clinging to some grey rock, like old age in the arms of beauty, or feathering over the edge of a beetling cliff, as if they were ostrich-plumes round some grim warrior’s head.
1864. Tennyson, En. Ard., 540.
| Scarce-rocking, her full-busted figure-head | |
| Stared o’er the ripple feathering from her bows. |
1881. Blackmore, Christowell, iv. Lights and shadows flow and flit, like the wave and dip of barley, feathering to a gentle July breeze.
b. U.S. Of cream: To rise upon the surface of tea, etc. like small flakes or feathers.
1860. Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, To Feather…. We say, ‘The cream feathers.’—Pickering.
1889. in Farmer, Americanisms.
1890. Critic, 21 June, 314/1. To keep cream from feathering in hot weather.
c. trans. To send up feather-wise. rare.
1861. Thornbury, Turner (1862), I. 222. I see him at Naples, where, in the calm sunshine, Vesuvius feathers up its quiet plume of pure white smoke.
9. Of a flower (chiefly, a tulip), To be feathered: to be marked with feather-like lines.
1833. Hogg, Suppl. on Florists’ Flowers, 31. When a Tulip is feathered with dark purple.
1881. Gard. Chron., XVI. 10 Dec., 748/3. The outside of the outer segments variously feathered with dark purple, blotched at the base with purple, or evenly suffused with purple darker than the general colour of the segments.
10. trans. To cut (wood, etc.) down gradually to a thin edge. Cf. FEATHER-EDGED a.
1782. Edgeworth, in Phil. Trans., LXXIII. 138. An arm of deal, feather-edged, and supported by stays of the same material, feathered in the same manner.
1794. Vince, ibid., LXXXV. 44. Pieces of lead with the edges feathered off.
11. To feather an oar: to turn it as it leaves the water at the end of a stroke, so that it may pass through the air edgeways.
a. 1740. [see FEATHERING ppl. a. b.]
1774. in Hone, Every-day Bk., II. 1062. He feather’d his oars with … skill.
1847. J. Wilson, Chr. North, I. 248. We to-day shall feather an oar.
absol. 1825. L. Hunt, Bacchus in Tuscany, 857.
| Gallants and boaters, who know how to feather, | |
| Never get tired, but think it a sport, | |
| To feather their oars, till they settle in port. |
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xiii. (1889), 121. This wind will make it very rough below the Gut. Mind you feather high now at starting.
III. In various uses.
12. Shooting. To knock a few feathers from (a bird) without killing.
1890. Payne-Gallwey, Let. Young Shooters, 137. You would have shot ‘well behind,’ and not even feathered the tail of a cock-pheasant.
1892. Field, 9 April, 524/1. Mr. Mervyn Watts … feathered a strong bird from No. 2 trap.
13. Hunting. a. Of a hound: To make a quivering movement with the tail and body, while searching for the trail. b. Of the huntsman (see quot. 1884).
1803. Spirit Public Jrnls. (1804), VII. 111. The leading hound, beginning to feather.
1839. F. D. Radcliffe, Noble Science, ix. 163. See that old bitch how she feathers—how her stern vibrates with the quickened action of her pulses.
1861. G. F. Berkeley, Sportsm. W. Prairies, 310. At last Druid began ‘to feather’ … on the traces of a deer.
1884. Jefferies, Red Deer, vii. 118. The harbourer likes to ‘feather’—to set the hounds direct on the trail.
1892. Field, 7 May. In a lot of oats Saul feathered about, but could not find.
