† 1. Fashioned, formed, shaped. Usually preceded by adv. of manner, as evil, fair, fine, ill, well featured, for which see those words. Obs.
c. 1500. Three Kings’ Sons, 111. They were passing wele fetured.
c. 1540. J. Heywood, Four P.P., in Hazl., Dodsley, I. 376.
| O pleasant picture! O prince of hell! | |
| Feutred in fashion abhominable. |
1543. Grafton, Contn. Harding, 468. Richard duke of Gloucestre … was … euill feautered of lymmes.
1575. Laneham, Let. (1871), 51. The rich ring with gem, without the fayr feawterd fynger, iz nothing in deed in hiz proper grace & vse.
1627. Hakewill, Apol., I. iii. § 3. 32. Were the Oxen then of the same Countrey stronger for labour, the horses better featured, or more serviceable then now?
1633. Bp. Hall, Hard Texts, 279. Thy nose by which all spirituall sents are convayed to thee, is perfectly composed, and featured like some curious Turret of that goodly house in Lebanon.
† b. Well-formed; comely, beautiful. Obs.
1567. Turberv., Ovid’s Epist., 10. I at natures hand no featurde face could gaine. Ibid. (1587), Trag. T. (1837), 63. Their feitured limmes bedeckt.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., X. lix. (1612), 257.
| Love-worth Maacha … baire | |
| To Dauid featred Absalom. |
1774. Langhorne, Country Justice, I. 123.
| In the free Eye, the featur’d Soul display’d, | |
| Honour’s strong Beam, and Mercy’s melting shade. |
2. a. Shaped into features. b. Expressed by features or external form.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., ix. 70.
| What are our noblest ornaments, but deaths | |
| Turn’d flatterer of life, in paint or marble, | |
| The well-stain’d canvas, or the featur’d stone? |
a. 1779. Langhorne, Studley Park, Poems (Chalmers), 418. Let … From Jones’s hand the featur’d marble glow.
1794. Mathias, Purs. Lit. (1798), 349.
| Methinks as in a theatre I stand, | |
| Where Vice and Folly saunter hand in hand, | |
| With each strange form in motley masquerade, | |
| Featur’d grimace, and impudence pourtray’d. |
1841. Hor. Smith, Moneyed Man, III. ii. 50. Her voice was the very soul of merry music; her habitual expression a mixture of cheerfulness and intelligence; her smile was a featured sunbeam.
1850. Lynch, Theo. Trin., xii. 231.
| Our earth, the featured Definite, | |
| Has meanings all divine; | |
| But oneness of the Infinite | |
| Doth in the azure shine. |
3. Furnished with or having features of a certain cast, usually preceded by some qualifying word.
1790. Pennant, London (1813), 302. Angelic faces, divested of every angelic expression, and featured with impudence, impenitency, and profligacy.
a. 1759. Goldsm., Voltaire, Wks. 1881, IV. 43. The Marquis d’Argent was graceful in person, regularly featured.
1850. Eb. Elliott, More Verse & Prose, Colonel Thompson in Palace Yard, I. 18. Who is that small Napoleon-featur’d pleader?
1861. W. F. Collier, Hist. Eng. Lit., 405–6. None was happier than that hard-featured nd faithful old forester, Tom Purdie.
