Feathers definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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Definitions (103)

American Heritage Dictionary (28)

noun One of the light, flat growths forming the plumage of birds, consisting of numerous slender, closely arranged parallel barbs forming a vane on either side of a horny, tapering, partly hollow shaft.
noun Plumage.
noun Clothing; attire.

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Century Dictionary (65)

One of the epidermal appendages which together constitute the plumage, the peculiar covering of birds; also, collectively, the plumage. Feathers are extremely modified scales. The nearest approach to them in animals other than birds is probably the quills of the porcupine. Feathers are epidermal, non-vascular, and nonnervous appendages. consisting of a horny and pithy substance, and subject to periodical molt. They grow somewhat like hairs, in a little pit or pouch formed by an inversion of the dermal layer of the integument, in a closed follicle, upon a peculiarly molded papilla, which causes the feather to assume its special shape. They are seldom implanted uniformly over the surface, but grow in special tracts or areas separated by naked spaces. (See pteryla, apterium.) All of a bird's feathers collectively considered constitute the plumage or ptilosis. (See cut under bird.) A perfect feather consists of a main stem, shaft, or scape; a supplementary stem, aftershaft, or hyporachis; and vanes, webs, or vexilla: these together making the standard. The scape is divided into two parts: one, nearest the body of the bird, is the barrel, quill, or calamus, a hard, horny, hollow, semi-transparent tube with one end inserted in the skin; it bears no webs, and passes insensibly at a point marked by a little pit (umbilicus) into the shaft proper or rachis. This is squarish in section, tapers to a fine point, is highly elastic, opaque, and solidly filled with dry pith; it bears the vexilla. The aftershaft is usually like a miniature of the main feather, springing from the stem of the latter at the junction of the calamus and rachis. (See aftershaft.) With its vanes it is called the hypoptilum. Sometimes it is as large as the main feather. There are two vanes, on opposite sides of the rachis. Each vane consists of a series of mutually appressed, thin, flat, linear or lancelinear plates, the barbs, set off obliquely from the rachis by their basal ends at a varying open angle. (See cut under barb.) To cause these plates to cohere with one another, and make a webbing of the vane, each barb bears secondary vanes; these are barbules, and bear to the barbs the same relation that the barbs bear to the rachis. Barbules are also fringed, as if frayed out, along their lower edges; each such fringe makes a tertiary vane. When these vanes are simple, they are termed barbicels; when hooked, hooklets or hamuli. (See cut under barbule.) From such perfect structure feathers may be reduced in various ways, even to lacking everything but the shaft; when this is very thick, feathers become much like scales, as in the penguin; when it is fine, they resemble hairs or bristles. In general, three types of feather-structure are recognized: (1) The perfectly feathery, plumous or pennaceous, structure. The goosequill used as a pen is a good example (though it lacks an aftershaft). Most contour-feathers are pennaceous. (2) The downy or plumulaceous, such as makes up the under-plumage or down. (3) The filoplumaceous, which approaches a bristle or hair. (See cut under filoplume.) But there is no strict line of demarcation, and in fact most feathers are pennaceous with plumulaceous bases of the webs. Feathers are also classified as (1) pennæ, plumæ, or contour-feathers; (2) plumulæ, or down-feathers; (3) semiplumæ, or half-feathers; (4) filoplumæ, or threadfeathers; and (5) pulviplumæ, dust-feathers, or powderdown. (See phrases below.) The acquisition of feathers is called endysis; their loss, ecdysis. Birds which acquire feathers in the egg are Præcoces or Ptilopædes; those which are hatched naked are Altrices, Psilopædes, or Gymnopædes. Feathers are of extremely rapid growth. They are of many shapes, often remarkable, and of every possible color. The color is usually due to actual pigmentation, but in many cases to iridescence. The optical effect of iridescence is due to the texture of the webs. Among all epidermal structures, feathers probably combine in the highest degree the qualities of lightness, strength, and elasticity. They are also very warm, and in many cases water-proof. He hathe a Crest of Fedres upon his Hed more gret than the Poocok hathe. Mandeville, Travels, p. 48. All byrdes doe loue by kynde, that are lyke of plume and feather, Good and bad, ye wyld and tame, all kyndes doe draw togyther. Babees Book (E. E. T. S.), p. 89. With the feathers of these wings the muses made themselves crowns, so that from this time the muses wore wings on their heads. Bacon, Moral Fables, vi.
Something in the form of a feather, or resembling nearly or remotely the standard of a feather; something made of feathers. The bents And coarser grass … now shine Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad, And. fledg'd with icy feathers, nod superb. Cowper, Task, v. 26.
Specifically — A plume.

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Alex wanted to reach out and touch her, to see if the feathers were as soft as they looked. — InterzoneScienceFictionandFantasyMagazine#214
Most of the feathers were as black as the woman's hair, but those near the wing tips were streaked with white. — Lunatics
She remembered: ‘The owl for all his feathers was a-cold.’ Not just what she wanted at the moment. — The Benevent Treasure - Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver 26: 1953
If the arrangement of the feathers were a bit more dynamic (ie off-centre and a bit more random) then it would also give it more flow and movement. — Shuttertalk - Getting Intimate with Digital Photography
I have to say though, the feathers are absolutely gorgeous. — Popular in the last 8 hours

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