Meaning

• Noun

  1. A branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display.
  2. Long hair on the lower legs of a dog or horse, especially a draft horse, notably the Clydesdale breed. Narrowly only the rear hair.
  3. One of the fins or wings on the shaft of an arrow.
  4. A longitudinal strip projecting from an object to strengthen it, or to enter a channel in another object and thereby prevent displacement sideways but permit motion lengthwise; a spline.
  5. Kind; nature; species (from the proverbial phrase "birds of a feather").
  6. One of the two shims of the three-piece stone-splitting tool known as plug and feather or plug and feathers; the feathers are placed in a borehole and then a wedge is driven between them, causing the stone to split.
  7. The angular adjustment of an oar or paddle-wheel float, with reference to a horizontal axis, as it leaves or enters the water.
  8. Anything petty or trifling; a whit or jot.
  9. Partridges and pheasants, as opposed to rabbits and hares (called fur).
  10. A junction indicator attached to a colour-light signal at an angle, which lights up, typically with four white lights in a row, when a diverging route is set up.

• Verb