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The use of the phrase "white feather" to symbolise cowardice is attested from the late 18th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.The OED cites A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1785), in which lexicographer Francis Grose wrote "White feather, he has a white feather, he is a coward, an allusion to a game cock, where having a white feather, is a proof he is not of the ...
The earliest mention of the punishment appears in orders that Richard I of England issued to his navy on starting for the Holy Land in 1189. "Concerning the lawes and ordinances appointed by King Richard for his navie the forme thereof was this ... item, a thiefe or felon that hath stolen, being lawfully convicted, shal have his head shorne, and boyling pitch poured upon his head, and feathers ...
Birds "of a feather" (in this case red-winged blackbirds) exhibiting flocking behavior, source of the idiom. Birds of a feather flock together is an English proverb. The meaning is that beings (typically humans) of similar type, interest, personality, character, or other distinctive attribute tend to mutually associate.
Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, ... The French word plume can mean feather, quill, or pen. Structures and characteristics.
Plumage (from Latin pluma 'feather') is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes.
addled eggs Also, wind eggs; hypanema. [5] Eggs that are not viable and will not hatch. [6] See related: overbrooding. afterfeather Any structure projecting from the shaft of the feather at the rim of the superior umbilicus (at the base of the vanes), but typically a small area of downy barbs growing in rows or as tufts.
Shu was also portrayed in art as wearing an ostrich feather. Shu was seen with between one and four feathers. The ostrich feather was symbolic of lightness and emptiness. Fog and clouds were also Shu's elements and they were often called his bones. Because of his position between the sky and Earth, he was also known as the wind. [7]
The tall bulbous white piece in the center of the crown is between two ostrich feathers. The feathers represent truth and justice. [1] The Atef crown is similar, save for the feathers, to the plain white crown first recorded in the Predynastic Period and worn as a symbol for pharaonic Upper Egypt.