1. That which has the weight of a feather; hence, a very small thing.
1838. Dickens, O. Twist (1850), 283/1. He turned … to observe the effect of the slightest featherweight in his favour.
1885. A. M. Clerke, Pop. Hist. Astron., 108. The feather-weight of his carelessness, however, kicked the beam.
2. Racing. The lightest weight allowed by the rules to be carried by a horse in a handicap. Hence sometimes applied to the rider.
1811. Sporting Mag., XXXIX. Dec., 136/2. The animals rode a feather weight.
1858. Jockey Club Rules, in Blaine’s Rural Sports (1870), 376. A feather weight shall be considered 4 st. 7 lb.
1883. E. Pennell-Elmhirst, The Cream of Leicestershire, 131–2. The last-named, who was going like a youth and a feather-weight, was afterwards heard to say that, even in his long experience, he had never seen hounds fly along as they did now.
fig. 1860. Motley, Netherl., I. 313–4. Burghley and Walsingham, the great Queen herself, were no feather-weights, like the frivolous Henry III. and his minions.
3. Boxing. Applied to a pugilist who is very light, as distinguished from a heavy-, middle-, or light-weight.
1889. E. B. Michell, Boxing, 147. The boundary between heavy and middle weight, down to feather-weight (9 stone).
So Feather-weighted ppl. a., trifling, unimportant.
1870. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 274. Finding that he can make those feather-weighted accidents balance each other.
