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contour feather love

contour feather

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of the outermost feathers of a bird, forming the visible body contour and plumage.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun ornithology Any feather possessing a central shaft (rachis), usually with vanes composed of barbs.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun feathers covering the body of an adult bird and determining its shape

Etymologies

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Examples

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hypernyms (3)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. feather
  2. plumage
  3. plume

hyponyms (1)

Words more specific or concrete

  1. flight feather

relateds (1)

relateds

  1. feather

Comments

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  • MaryW commented on the word contour feather

    There are three types of feather. The most abundant and obvious are the contour feathers: these include the long, strong wing and tail feathers, but also the short feathers that cover the body and rictal bristles around the mouth. The second type are fluffy, down feathers, lying out of sight under the contour feathers close to the body. Their role is to act primarily as insulation . . . . The third type of feather is much less familiar and you are likely only to have noticed them if you have ever plucked a bird like a chicken or a pigeon. Once all the contour and down feathers have been removed, what's left are the filoplumes, fine hair-like feathers sparsely dotted over the entire body surface and always rooted close to the base of a contour feather.
    Tim Birkhead, Bird Sense: What It's Like to Be a Bird (New York: Walker & Co., 2012), p. 83-84.

    May 30, 2016