Mil. (now only Hist.) Also swine-feather; sweynes-feather, swan’s-feather. [ad. G. schweinsfeder (1) boar-spear [= early mod.Du. swijnspriet, -spiesse, -staf, -stock), (2) rifleman’s lance used as a rest for the rifle and, in numbers, as chevaux-de-frise.] A pointed stake or pike, used as a weapon of defence against cavalry, being either fixed in the ground as a palisade (PALISADE sb. 2) or carried in a musket-rest like a bayonet. Also called Swedish feather (FEATHER sb. 14) and swine’s-pike (SWINE 5).
1635. Barriffe, Milit. Discipl., xcv. (1643), 307. Those parts which lye most open to the fury of the enemies Horse, ought to bee impaled with pallisadose (or swines-feathers).
1639. Sir A. Johnston (Ld. Wariston), Diary (S.H.S.), 50. We have receaved no spades, nor howes, no swyne feathers wherby we may intrinch ourselves.
1646. Dk. Albemarle, Obs. Milit. & Polit. Aff., viii. (1671), 26. So many Musqueteers as you have more than Pikemen in your Army ought to have Swine-feathers with heads of rests fastned to them.
1786. Grose, Milit. Antiq., I. 165.
1824. Meyrick, Ant. Armour, III. 78.
1834. Penny Cycl., II. 376/1. The sweynes-feather was invented in the reign of James I. During the civil wars, its name was sometimes corrupted into swan’s-feather.
