WHITE FEATHER

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does white feather mean? 

• WHITE FEATHER (noun)
  The noun WHITE FEATHER has 1 sense:

1. a symbol of cowardice

  Familiarity information: WHITE FEATHER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WHITE FEATHER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A symbol of cowardice

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("white feather" is a kind of...):

symbol; symbolic representation; symbolisation; symbolization (something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible)

 Context examples 

This said, he flew out at the door, and poor Lily followed; and every now and then a white feather fell, and showed her the way she was to journey.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

In the rapid glance Alleyne saw that he had white doeskin gloves, a curling white feather in his flat velvet cap, and a broad gold, embroidered baldric across his bosom.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Then she began to be glad, and thought to herself that the time was fast coming when all her troubles should end; yet repose was still far off, for one day as she was travelling on she missed the white feather, and when she lifted up her eyes she could nowhere see the dove.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

In the opposite corner there sat a very burly and broad-shouldered man, clad in a black jerkin trimmed with sable, with a black velvet cap with curling white feather cocked upon the side of his head.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In a moment he disappeared, and when his wife came in and looked for him, she found only a white dove; and it said to her, Seven years must I fly up and down over the face of the earth, but every now and then I will let fall a white feather, that will show you the way I am going; follow it, and at last you may overtake and set me free.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)