Forms: 4–5 fetour(e, 4–6 feture, feyture, 5 fetur, (fay(o)ture, fetture, fe(i)ter, feetour, 6 feuter, fewter, 7 feauture), 6– feature. [a. OF. feture, failure (= Pr. faitura, factura):—L. factūra: see FACTURE.]
1. Make, form, fashion, shape; proportions, esp. of the body; a particular example of this. Obs. exc. arch.
c. 1325. A Song of Mercy, 40, in E. E. P. (1862), 119.
| I made þe Mon ȝif þat þou mynne | |
| Of feture liche myn owne fasoun. |
14[?]. Why I can’t be a Nun, 134, ibid., 141. I behelde welle her feture.
c. 1410. Sir Cleges, 11.
| He was a man of hight stature, | |
| And therto full fayr of feture. |
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 306 b. In all feyture of body … I was moost lyke vnto thy Grace.
1600. Dymmok, Ireland (1843), 5. The cuntry yeeldeth great store of beeffes and porkes, excellent horses of a fine feature and wonderfull swyfnes, and are thought to be a kinde of the race of the Spanish Genetts.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, VI. i. (1614), 558. A kinde of great Apes, if they might so be termed, of the height of a man, but twice as bigge in feature of their limmes, with strength proportionable, hairie all ouer.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies (1840), II. 501. The king fell much enamoured of her feature; whilst the lady put herself into a chaste posture, and kept a discreet distance, neither forward to accept, nor froward to decline, his favour.
1671. H. M., trans. Erasm. Colloq., 320. A woman appeared to him in his sleep, in a wonderful feature.
1684. T. Hockin, God’s Decrees, 328. Pleasantness … is very visible in the complexion and feature of true Religion.
1820. Keats, Hyperion, III. 87.
| Then to the west I look’d, and saw far off | |
| An image, huge of feature as a cloud. |
1875. Tennyson, Q. Mary, I. i. Courtenay … of splendid feature.
† b. Good form or shape; comeliness. Obs.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., I. i. 19.
| I, that am curtail’d of this faire Proportion, | |
| Cheated of Feature by dissembling Nature. |
1594. Parsons, Succession to Engl. Crown, Ep. Ded. His excellent partes of lerning, wit, feuter of body, curtesie [etc.].
† c. concr. Something formed or shaped; a form, shape, creation. Obs. Cf. CREATURE 1.
1483. Caxton, Gold. Leg., 256/2. Alle fetures and all creatures prayse the moder of lyghte.
1601. B. Jonson, Poetaster, II. i. No doubt of that, sweet feature.
a. 1618. Sylvester, Arctophilos’ Epist. to Arctoa, 84. Nature … Adorns her shop still with the matchlesse feature.
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 279.
| So sented the grim Feature, and upturn’d | |
| His Nostril wide into the murkie Air. |
† d. As a term of contempt: = CREATURE. [So OF. faiture; in Eng. perh. confused with FAITOUR.]
c. 1460. Towneley Myst., 60.
| And, fature, for thy sake, | |
| Thay shalbe pent to pyne. | |
| Ibid., 120. | |
| To felle those fatures I am bowne, | |
| And dystroy those doges in feyld and towne. |
a. 1400[?]. Chester Pl. (1847), II. 162.
| Fye on thee, feature, fie on thee! | |
| The devilles owine nurrye. |
† 2. a. In pl. The elements which constitute bodily form; the build or make of the various parts of the body. Hence in sing. with distributive adj. b. concr. A part of the body; a limb. Obs.
13[?]. E. E. Allit. P., B. 794. Alle feturez ful fyn & fautlez boþe.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. VII. 46. Prout of my faire fetours.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys, Introd. (Roxb.), 5. Hyr oo foot is Both flesh and boon … Men may behoden eche feture Ther of saf the greth too only.
c. 1460–70. Compl. Criste, 200, in Pol. Rel. & L. Poems, 172. I sende the bodyly helthe … fayrenes and also feturs fele.
1508. Fisher, Wks. (1876), I. 240. How many lacke theyr armes, fete, handes, & other fetures of theyr bodyes.
1599. Weever, Epigr., IV. xxii. E vj. Their rosie-tainted features cloth’d in tissue.
1726. Swift, Gulliver, IV. vii. 103. I agreed in every Feature of my Body with other Yahoos, except where it was to my real Disadvantage in point of Strength, Speed, and Activity, the shortness of my Claws, and some other particulars where Nature had no part.
1752. Young, Brothers, IV. i.
| Shall I stab | |
| Her lovely image stampt on every feature? |
3. In narrower sense, a. In pl. and distributively: The lineaments of the face, the form or mould of its various parts. Also collect. in sing.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 857.
| Wanne … meliors · miȝt se his face, | |
| sche þout þroly in heate · þat leuer hire were | |
| haue welt him at wille · þan of þe world be quene; | |
| so fair of all fetures · þe frek was, hire þouȝt. |
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 255.
| First the fetures of her face, | |
| In which nature had alle grace. |
14[?]. The Ephyphanye, in Tundale’s Vis., 111.
| With grete avyse they began to behold and se | |
| Before they remeved from that place | |
| Hys gudly chere and hys feyr face | |
| Consyduryng hys feturis by and by | |
| With grett insyght and humble entencyon. |
1603. Knolles, Hist. Turks (1621), 12. Under such simple and homly feature, lay … a most subtil … wit.
a. 1639. T. Carew, Poems, Wks., To A. L. (1824), 4.
| For, being so, you looke the pleasure | |
| Of being faire, since that rich treasure | |
| Of rare beauty and sweet feature | |
| Was bestow’d on you by nature | |
| To be enjoy’d. |
1766. Fordyce, Serm. Yng. Wom. (ed. 4), II. xiii. 224–5. In your sex manly exercises are never graceful; that in them a tone and figure, as well as an air and deportment, of the masculine kind, are always forbidding; and that men of sensibility desire in every woman soft features, and a flowing voice, a form not robust, and a demeanour delicate and gentle.
1842. Prichard, Nat. Hist. Man, 222. The features of the Tschuk-tschi, their manners and customs, pronounce them of American origin.
1887. T. A. Trollope, What I remember, I. xvi. 331–2. A man … who equalled him in clear-cut delicacy and refinement of feature, who was certainly a high-bred gentleman, not altogether ignorant of the ways and manners of courts, and who was emphatically a man of intellectual pursuits and habits.
fig. a. 1680. Butler, Satyr upon the Imperfection and Abuse of Human Learning, II., Remains, 1759, I. 223.
| Words are but Pictures, true or false, design’d, | |
| To draw the Lines and Features of the Mind. |
a. 1788. Mickle, The Siege of Marseilles, I. i.
| Yet oft with pain and fear have I beheld | |
| A little, wayward, giddy levity, | |
| Show its capricious features in the midst | |
| Of thy endearments. |
1827. Pollok, Course T., V. 738. Redeeming features in the face of Time.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. vii. 25. Tenderness for animals is no unusual feature in the portraits of holy men.
b. concr. Any of the parts of the face; the eye, nose, mouth, forehead, or chin.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, ii. There was daring … in the dark eye, but the other features seemed to express a bashful timidity.
1847. Emerson, Poems, The Visit, Wks. (Bohn), I. 404.
| Say, what other metre is it | |
| Than the meeting of the eyes? | |
| Nature poureth into nature | |
| Through the channels of that feature. |
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 23. Hitting the poor Venus another and another and still another blow on that unhappy feature.
4. transf. A distinctive or characteristic part of a thing; some part which arrests the attention by its conspicuousness or prominence. a. of material things.
1693. Dryden, St. Euremont’s Ess., 164. Examine separately each feature of the Picture.
1791. Burke, French Affairs, Wks. 1842, I. 570. The several kingdoms, which compose Spain, have, perhaps, some features which run through the whole; but they are in many particulars as different as nations who go by different names.
1815. Elphinstone, Acc. Caubul (1842), II. 225. The grand feature of the country is the Indus, which divides it into two parts.
1866. Crump, Banking, x. 220. These Irish rings possessed much more the features of a true coinage than the pieces of metal used by the Egyptians, as the larger ones have been found on being weighed to be multiples of the small ones or units.
1866. B. Stewart, Heat, § 362. Another feature of the locomotive is the blast-pipe, or pipe by means of which the waste steam is made to escape through the chimney, and in so doing to supply a powerful draught to the fire.
1874. Micklethwaite, Modern Parish Churches, 186. Lighting with gas is now done by means of lines of jets following string courses or other architectural features.
b. of immaterial things.
a. 1822. Ld. Castlereagh, Speech. The feature on which this question chiefly hinges.
1835. Marryat, Jac. Faithf., viii. The principal feature in him was lightness off heart.
1875. A. R. Hope, My Schoolboy Friends, 163. Afterwards came some English recitations, which were always a great feature of the prize day.
c. Comb.
1792. Burns, Lett. to G. Thomson, 8 Nov. The emphasis, or what I would call the feature-notes of the tune.
1853. Lynch, Self-Improv., vi. 145. There is a feature-mark, a seminal speciality, which each has; and without which, the adult various forms of human excellency could not be realized.
