Feather

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈfɛð.ə(ɹ)/

Definitions

1. A light, flat structure that grows from a bird's skin and covers its body, used for flight and insulation
2. A soft, lightweight structure originating from birds that serves to facilitate flight, provide insulation, and play a role in mating displays
3. An elongated and thin structure found on birds that assists in aerial movement, offers warmth, and contributes to species identity

Etymology: Feather is one of those words whose oldest meaning is about flight rather than the object itself. Its ancestor, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European "péth₂r̥", meant "feather, wing" and was built on a root meaning "to fly," which is also the source of the Ancient Greek "pétomai," "to fly." The same root gave Latin "penna," also "feather," and Albanian "shpend," meaning "bird." The word came into English through Middle English "fethere," descended from Old English "feþer." It has close relatives across the Germanic languages, from German "Feder" and Dutch "veer" to Swedish "fjäder" and Icelandic "fjöður," all carrying the same basic sense. Cognates in other tongues, such as Yiddish "feder," show how far the family has spread. Feather also gained extended meanings. In English it came to denote the flight-carrying plumes used to stabilise an arrow, a use called fletching, and later the sense of a projecting strip that fits into a groove, as in splines and keys. The latter is probably an analogy with the arrow sense, not a direct development from the bird.

Synonyms: plume, quill, down