feeler--prophetes.ai

feeler
  (ˈfiːlə(r))
  [f. feel v. + -er¹.]
  One who or that which feels.
  1. One who feels or perceives by the senses, esp. by the touch.

1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 258 The smellers or felers therof. 1611 Shakes. Cymb. i. vi. 101 This hand..whose touch would force the Feelers soule To'th'oath of loyalty. 1674 N. Fairfax Bulk & Selv. 47 All hearers deaf, all feelers numb. 1840 Tait's Mag. VII. 706, I was one of the best feelers of a silk that ever entered Snuggs' shop.

2. a. One who is the subject of feeling or emotion. † b. One who knows (anything) by his own feelings (obs.). c. One who experiences or has to bear (something disastrous or painful).

1611 Wotton Let. to Sir E. Bacon in Reliq. Wotton. (1672) 399 Of my longing to see you, I am a better feeler than a describer. 1779 Johnson Let. to Mrs. Thrale 8 Nov., If she be a feeler, I can bear a feeler as well as you. 1814 Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. IV. 24 We are to be the main feelers of the consequences. 1870 Lowell Study Wind. 207 He was not a strong thinker, but a sensitive feeler.

3. a. Biol. One of the organs with which certain animals are furnished, for trying by the touch objects with which they come in contact, or for searching for food; a palp.

1665 Hooke Microgr. 194 There are two other jointed and brisled horns, or feelers, in the forepart of the head. 1721 R. Bradley Wks. Nat. 55 Those Antenæ, or Feelers, which we observe in Lobsters. 1768 G. White Selborne xviii. (1789) 52 The upper jaw [of the loach]..is surrounded with six feelers, three on each side. 1774 Goldsm. Nat. Hist. VII. 327 The ant-lion seizes it with its feelers, which are hollow. 1843 Owen Invertebr. An. xiii. 155 The mouth [of the Cirripedia] is provided with a broad upper lip, with two palps or feelers. 1880 W. B. Carpenter in 19th Cent. No. 38. 617 Many of these are provided with enormously long and delicate feelers or hairs.

b. transf. and fig.

1865 Merivale Rom. Emp. VIII. lxvi. 235 Her ships were the feelers with which she touched on Greece and Italy. 1874 Blackie Self-Cult. 61 [Atheists] can..fasten their coarse feelers upon nothing but what they can finger.

c. slang. That with which one feels; the hand.

1877 Five Years' Penal Serv. 259 In a week or two a man can bring his hooks and feelers into full working trim again.

4. a. One sent out to ‘feel’ the enemy; a scout. Cf. feel v. 3 b.

1847 Infantry Man. (1854) 105 These patrols must be preceded by feelers. 1876 Voyle Milit. Dict., Feelers.

b. transf. A proposal or hint put forth or thrown out in order to ascertain the opinions of others.

1830 Gen. P. Thompson Exerc. (1842) I. 288 The feeler which they have put out. 1858 Froude Hist. Eng. III. xv. 273 Cromwell had thrown out feelers in the various European courts. 1886 ‘H. Conway’ Living or Dead v, ‘It will cost a great deal if I fit them up as I like,’ I said as a feeler.

attrib. 1889 Pall Mall G. 30 May 6/3 The project has gone no further than the feeler circular.

c. Racing. A trial race.

1883 Standard 21 May 2/1 Osborne, journeyed from Manchester..with the express purpose of having a ‘feeler’ on Mr. Adrian's colt.

5. a. A thin metal strip made to a stated thickness, used to measure narrow gaps or clearances and usu. forming one of a set. More fully feeler gauge.

1931 D. Garnett Grasshoppers Come 6 While Wright was tracing out the cause of an intermittent miss on the starboard magneto of a Gipsy engine and was toying with a pair of feeler gauges. 1935 T. E. Lawrence Lett. (1938) 856 A set of Power feeler gauges, as supplied in tool kits. 1967 E. Chambers Photolitho-Offset xv. 231 The lock nuts and adjusting screws are released in order that, for example, a 0·006 in. feeler can just be inserted between the bearers on both sides of the cylinders.

b. A device which moves a control lever in the weaving of artificial silk.

1927 T. Woodhouse Artif. Silk 131 When the weft is nearly exhausted in the shuttle, an electric circuit is completed; this causes a single feeler under the circular magazine to move a control lever which ensures that the next chance of weft will place in the shuttle a bobbin with the same kind of weft as that just finished.