befeather

English

Etymology

From be- +‎ feather.

Verb

befeather (third-person singular simple present befeathers, present participle befeathering, simple past and past participle befeathered)

1. (transitive) To deck or cover with feathers.
   • 1785, John Rickman, Journal of Captain Cook’s Last Voyage, to the Pacific Ocean: on Discovery‎^[1], London: E. Newbery, Part 2, pp. 223-224:

     The men were not ill made, but they disfigured themselves with grease and coarse paint; they were of a dark copper-colour, with lank black hair, which they tied in a knot behind; but they so bepowdered, or rather befeathered it with down, that the colour was hardly discernible […]

   • 1871, Harriet Beecher Stowe, chapter 25, in Pink and White Tyranny‎^[2], Boston: Roberts Brothers, page 291:

     In fact, Grace found it very difficult to find a milliner who, if left to her own devices, would not befeather and beflower her past all self-recognition, giving to her that generally betousled and fly-away air which comes straight from the demi-monde of Paris.

   • 2001, Leonard Clark, The Rivers Ran East:

     They were making a human fetish doll out of clay, painting and befeathering it, offering yuca to it.

Anagrams

• beefheart