pin-feather, n.
(ˈpɪnˌfɛðə(r))
[f. pin n.1 + feather.]
An ungrown feather, before the vanes have expanded, and while the barrel is full of a dark serous fluid; any young feather from the time that it first pierces the skin, much in the form of a pin, until it bursts its confining sheath and expands its vanes: = pen-feather 2.
| 1775 Ash, Pinfeather, a feather just as it begins to shoot. 1839 Audubon Ornith. Biog. V. 520 The nest..still contained three young Cuckoos, all of different sizes,..the largest, covered with pin-feathers, would have been able to leave the nest in about a week. 1852 Mrs. Stowe Uncle Tom's C. xviii, Shelling peas, peeling potatoes, picking pin-feathers out of fowls. 1879 J. Burroughs Locusts & Wild Honey (1884) 59 When nearly grown they [cuckoos] are covered with long blue pin-feathers.., without a bit of plumage on them. |
| attrib. 1901 Longm. Mag. May 21 The young birds were in the early pinfeather stage. |
Hence
ˈpin-ˌfeather v. trans., to pluck out the pin-feathers from; whence
pin-ˌfeatherer [see
-er1];
ˈpin-ˌfeathery a., full of or abounding in pin-feathers.
| 1874 J. W. Long Amer. Wildfowl xxii. 231 Skins of birds killed in spring are more valuable than those of fall birds, which are usually ‘pin-feathery’. 1893 Mrs. Cartwright in Voice (N.Y.) 30 Nov., Mrs. Piper was pin-feathering the noble bird. 18.. J. S. Johnson Poultry Raising Guide (Boston U.S.) 38 Pass her over to the pin-featherers, keeping three or four of these busy removing pin-feathers [etc.]. |