Plumer

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. To remove the feathers from a bird, especially after hunting or slaughter
2. To pull off or strip away the plumage from a bird's body
3. To deprive a bird of its feathers by plucking or scraping them away

Etymology: A plumer is someone who works with plumes, a plume being a feather or a tuft of feathers used as decoration. The word was built in English by adding the suffix "-er" to "plume," the same ending that turns "bake" into "baker" or "sing" into "singer." Its meaning follows the plume directly: a person who made or handled feathers for ornament, the kind of craftsman who arranged them on hats, helmets and costumes. The suffix does the work here, and the base word explains the rest. "Plume" itself came into English from Old French, which took it from Latin "pluma," meaning feather, so the agent noun carries that ancient sense of feather-work straight into its meaning.

Synonyms: plumber