pinfeather

[ pin-feth-er ]
/ ˈpɪnˌfɛð ər /

noun Ornithology.

an undeveloped feather before the web portions have expanded.
a feather just coming through the skin.

Origin of pinfeather

First recorded in 1765–75; pin + feather

Words nearby pinfeather

pinetum, pineville, pinewood, piney, pinfall, pinfeather, pinfire, pinfish, pinfold, ping, ping hsin

Example sentences from the Web for pin-feather

  • Or take a plucked hen and draw roughly the pin-feather scheme as you find it on her body.

    The Spring of the Year |Dallas Lore Sharp

  • They start up at the first distant approach of the financier, every plume and pin-feather quivering.

    Captain Macedoine's Daughter |William McFee

  • The other chickens never would let him raise a pin-feather ter cover his nakedness; they picked on him suthin awful.

    The Corner House Girls Under Canvas |Grace Brooks Hill

  • There is a kind of pin-feather gentility which seems to have a settled aversion to using the terms man and woman.

    The Verbalist |Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

British Dictionary definitions for pin-feather

pinfeather
/ (ˈpɪnˌfɛðə) /

noun

ornithol a feather emerging from the skin and still enclosed in its horny sheath