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featherbed

noun

Etymology

From feather + bed.

  1. derived from *bʰedʰh₂-✻ — “to dig”
  2. inherited from *badją✻ — “resting-place, plot of ground”
  3. inherited from *badi✻
  4. inherited from bedd
  5. inherited from bed
  6. formed as featherbed — “feather + bed”

Definitions

  1. A mattress stuffed with feathers.

  2. An area of bog where a layer of moss covers a pool of water or mud, presenting a hazard…

    An area of bog where a layer of moss covers a pool of water or mud, presenting a hazard to walkers who may fall through it. (Also in UK and Irish placenames.)

    • […] bog. The writers and the old fellows you meet in pubs will tell you to look out for grass or 'bright green areas', and to fear the land that looks the easiest; but bogs - 'featherbeds', the locals call them - might be marked[…]
    • [...] a featherbed bog of moss and cotton grasses. Much of their effort has just burned away to nothing — the peat giving[…]

  3. A soft, slow pitch of predictable bounce.

  4. ›+ 2 more definitions

    1. To treat someone with excessive indulgence

      To treat someone with excessive indulgence; to pamper, cosset or mollycoddle.

    2. To engage in featherbedding

      To engage in featherbedding; to employ more workers than necessary to fulfill a labor union requirement.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for featherbed. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA