a. [f. as prec. + -Y.]
1. Of birds: Clothed with feathers; feathered.
1634. Milton, Comus, 346.
| Might we but hear … the … village cock | |
| Count the night watches to his feathery Dames. |
1753. Dodsley, Agriculture, I. 240.
| At a word, | |
| His feathery subjects in obedience flock | |
| Around his feeding hand, who in return | |
| Yield a delicious tribute to his board. |
1800. Hurdis, The Favourite Village, 125.
| Beneath my chair | |
| Sit budge, a feathery bunch. |
1884. Pall Mall G., 17 March, 12/2. The … bird … joins once more in feathery society.
b. Of a dog: Curly-haired.
1889. Pall Mall G., 12 Aug., 6/1. Groups of feathery setters … strain on their couplings.
2. Fringed, tipped, or flecked with something feather-like.
1792. S. Rogers, The Pleasures of Memory, I. 220.
| Her eyes had bless’d the beacon’s glimmering height | |
| That faintly tipt the feathery surge with light. |
1826. Mrs. Hemans, Forest Sanctuary, I. iii.
| And sighing through the feathery canes—hath power | |
| To call up shadows, in the silent hour. |
1876. Miss Braddon, J. Haggard’s Dau., II. i. 25–6. Silver arrows of pale summer moonlight pierced the feathery pine-branches, evening’s breath crept through the wood with a plaintive sound that was half whisper, half sigh.
1884. F. D. Millet, George Fuller, in Harper’s Mag., LXIX., Sept., 520/1. The sky itself feathery and soft in texture.
b. Of the voice: Husky.
1881. J. Grant, Cameronians, I. iii. 42. Sir Piers, whose voice had become certainly somewhat ‘feathery.’
3. Resembling feathers or plumes. a. in appearance: Feather-like, plume-like, esp. of snow.
1580. C’tess Pembroke, Ps. cxlviii.
| You flames affrighting mortall brests, | |
| You cloudes that stones do cast, | |
| You feathery snowes from wynters nests, | |
| You vapors, sunnes appast. |
1650. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. i. (ed. 2), 55. Which seems to be some feathery particle of snow.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, XII. 336.
| As the feathery snows | |
| Fall frequent, on some wintry day, when Jove | |
| Hath risen to shed them on the race of man. |
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 300. The feathery appendages to the seeds of Dandelion.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxv. (1856), 323. Before the sun had reached his meridian altitude, the prolongations had become faint, and passed into detached feathery clouds, which collected at the zenith and lost the radiated arrangement altogether.
1870. Hooker, Stud. Flora, 180. Valeriana … Calyx-limb annular, crenulate, developing into a feathery deciduous pappus.
1888. Miss Braddon, Fatal Three, I. i. Diamond stars trembling amongst her feathery golden hair.
b. in lightness. Hence of immaterial things: Light, fickle. Of material things: Light, flimsy.
1601. ? Marston, Pasquil & Katherine, I. 281.
| For as it pleas’d my bribed lips to blowe, | |
| So turnes her feath’rie fancie to and fro. |
1699. W. Bates, Spir. Perfect. Unfolded, xii. 420. Our Resolutions are Light and Feathery.
1805. Dickens, Mut. Fr., II. vi. Blowing the feathery ash from his cigar.
1871. R. Ellis, Catullus, lxiv. 63.
| Holds not her yellow locks the tiara’s feathery tissue; | |
| Veils not her hidden breast light brede of drapery woven; | |
| Binds not a cincture smooth her bosom’s orbed emotion. |
c. humorously. Of a feather-dealer.
1813. Moore, Post-bag (ed. 8), 54. Fine and feathery artizan…. Make for me a prince’s plume.
