Depluming

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The act of removing feathers or hair from a bird or animal is referred to as depilating
2. This term describes the process of stripping away feathers or fur from a creature's body
3. The removal of feathers or fur from an animal's body is commonly described by this term

Etymology: "Depluming" is the present participle of "deplume," which came into English from French "déplumer," itself drawn from the Latin "dēplūmō." The Latin verb is built from "dē-," meaning "off" or "away," and "plūmō," which meant "to cover with feathers," from "plūma," the word for feather. Put together, the sense is simply "to strip of feathers," a plain and physical image that has barely shifted. The root "plūma" has a close Latin relative, "dēplūmis," meaning "featherless," which shows the same stripping sense in an adjective. English has kept the picture literal: the word describes the bare process of pulling feathers from a bird, and the feathers themselves are the whole point of the term.