[+ -ING1.]
1. The action of the vb. FEATHER in various senses.
1640. Bp. Hall, Chr. Moder., 8/1. That bird of whom Suidas speaks, which dies in the very act of his feathering.
1775. Burke, Corr. (1844), II. 26. We talk of starving hundreds of thousands of people with far greater ease and mirth than the regulations of a turnpike;—by far, I assure you. North Carolina is left out, as I suppose, because it furnishes tar for feathering.
1875. Sharpe, in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 9), II. 372/1, ‘Archery.’ This king [Henry V. of England] directed the sheriffs of counties to take six wing-feathers from every goose for the feathering of arrows.
1878. Besant & Rice, Celia’s Arb., iv. (1887), 35. Rowing their short, deep stroke, without any feathering, but in perfect time.
b. Arboriculture (see quot.).
1827. Steuart, Planter’s G. (1828), 237. What the workmen call ‘the feathering,’ that is, the position of the capillary rootlets upon the primary rootlets or branches, which are always found pointing outwards from the body of the Tree.
2. In various concrete senses: The plumage of birds; the feather of an arrow; feather-like structure in the coat of an animal.
1530. Palsgr., 219/1. Fedderyng of a shafte.
1721. R. Bradley, Wks. Nature, 57. The Beauty of whose Shells … is as remarkable as the diversity of Feathering in Birds.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxi. 268. The ptarmigan shows a singular backwardness in assuming the summer feathering.
1875. G. W. Dasent, Vikings, I. 46. An arrow on which a golden thread was twisted in the feathering.
1885. Century Mag., XXXI. 121. His [the Irish setter’s] coat is short, flat, soft to the touch, and, where it extends into what is technically known as feathering, is like spun silk in quality.
1891. J. L. Kipling, Beast & Man in India, viii. 199. In Indian horse lore the set of these featherings … ending sometimes in circles or whorls, are all mapped out like currents on a mariner’s chart.
b. Archit. (see quot. 1842–76).
1815. J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, I. 132. The parts of tracery are ornamented with small arches and points, which is called feathering or foliation.
1842–76. Gwilt, Encycl. Archit., Gloss., Featherings, the cusps, plain or decorated, at the ends of a foil in tracery.
1854. J. L. Petit, Archit. Studies France, 84. Some windows of a single light, with a free trefoil feathering in the head.
c. Gardening. A feather-like marking or pencilling in a flower.
1833. Hogg, Suppl. Florists’ Flowers, 25. The feathering elegant and various, heavy and light, close in some [Tulips], and slightly broken in others.
1882. The Garden, XXI. 28 Jan., 67/1. The outer surface of the outer segments is coated with rich buff, suffused with purple featherings.
3. attrib.
1858. O. W. Holmes, Aut. Breakf.-t., vii. (1891), 165. I have established a pair of well-pronounced feathering-calluses on my thumbs.
1867. J. Hogg, Microsc., II. ii. 407. Each one will be found to revolve a quarter of a circle whereby a ‘feathering movement’ is effected, and a current in one direction constantly produced.
