Fayence noun See Fa...ence .

Faytour noun See Faitour . [ Obsolete] Spenser.

Faze transitive verb See Feeze .

Fazzolet noun [ Italian fazzoletto .] A handkerchief. [ R.] percival.

Feaberry noun [ Confer Prov. English feabe , theabe , thape .] (Botany) A gooseberry. [ Prov. Eng.] Prior.

Feague transitive verb [ Confer German fegen to sweep, Icelandic fægia to cleanse, polish, English fair , fay , to fit, fey to cleanse.] To beat or whip; to drive. [ Obsolete] Otway.

Feal adjective [ Old French feal , feel , feeil , fedeil , French fidèle , Latin fidelis faithful, from fides faith. See Faith .] Faithful; loyal. [ Obsolete] Wright.

Fealty noun [ Middle English faute , Old French fauté , fealté , feelé , feelteit , from Latin fidelitas , from fidelis faithful. See Feal , and confer Fidelity .]
1. Fidelity to one's lord; the feudal obligation by which the tenant or vassal was bound to be faithful to his lord; the special oath by which this obligation was assumed; fidelity to a superior power, or to a government; loyality. It is no longer the practice to exact the performance of fealty, as a feudal obligation. Wharton (Law Dict. ). Tomlins.

2. Fidelity; constancy; faithfulness, as of a friend to a friend, or of a wife to her husband.

He should maintain fealty to God.

I. Taylor.

Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps
The fealty of our friends.

tennyson.

Swore fealty to the new government.

Macaulay.

» Fealty is distinguished from homage , which is an acknowledgment of tenure, while fealty implies an oath. See Homage . Wharton.

Syn. -- Homage; loyality; fidelity; constancy.

Fear noun A variant of Fere , a mate, a companion. [ Obsolete] Spenser.

Fear noun [ Middle English fer , feer , fere , Anglo-Saxon f...r a coming suddenly upon, fear, danger; akin to Dutch vaar , Old High German fāra danger, German gefahr , Icelandic fār harm, mischief, plague, and to English fare , peril . See Fare .]
1. A painful emotion or passion excited by the expectation of evil, or the apprehension of impending danger; apprehension; anxiety; solicitude; alarm; dread.

» The degrees of this passion, beginning with the most moderate, may be thus expressed, -- apprehension , fear , dread , fright , terror .

Fear is an uneasiness of the mind, upon the thought of future evil likely to befall us.

Locke.

Where no hope is left, is left no fear .

Milton.

2. (Script.) (a) Apprehension of incurring, or solicitude to avoid, God's wrath; the trembling and awful reverence felt toward the Supreme Belng. (b) Respectful reverence for men of authority or worth.

I will put my fear in their hearts.

Jer. xxxii. 40.

I will teach you the fear of the Lord.

Ps. xxxiv. 11.

render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is due . . . fear to whom fear .

Rom. xiii. 7.

3. That which causes, or which is the object of, apprehension or alarm; source or occasion of terror; danger; dreadfulness.

There were they in great fear, where no fear was.

Ps. liii. 5.

The fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal enterprise.

Shak.

For fear , in apprehension lest. "For fear you ne'er see chain nor money more." Shak.

Fear transitive verb [ imperfect & past participle Feared ; present participle & verbal noun Fearing .] [ Middle English feren , faeren , to frighten, to be afraid, Anglo-Saxon f...ran to terrify. See Fear , noun ]
1. To feel a painful apprehension of; to be afraid of; to consider or expect with emotion of alarm or solicitude.

I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

Ps. xxiii. 4.

With subordinate clause.

I greatly fear my money is not safe.

Shak.

I almost fear to quit your hand.

D. Jerrold.

2. To have a reverential awe of; to solicitous to avoid the displeasure of.

Leave them to God above; him serve and fear .

Milton.

3. To be anxious or solicitous for. [ R.]

The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children, therefore . . . I fear you.

Shak.

4. To suspect; to doubt. [ Obsolete]

Ay what else, fear you not her courage?

Shak.

5. To affright; to terrify; to drive away or prevent approach of by fear. [ Obsolete]

fear their people from doing evil.

Robynsin (More's utopia).

Tush, tush! fear boys with bugs.

Shak.

Syn. -- To apprehend; dread; reverence; venerate.

Fear intransitive verb To be in apprehension of evil; to be afraid; to feel anxiety on account of some expected evil.

I exceedingly fear and quake.

Hebrew xii. 21.

Fearer noun One who fars. Sir P. Sidney.

Fearful adjective
1. Full of fear, apprehension, or alarm; afraid; frightened.

Anxious amidst all their success, and fearful amidat all their power.

Bp. Warburton.

2. inclined to fear; easily frightened; without courage; timid.

What man is there that is fearful and faint- hearted?

Deut. xx. 8.

3. Indicating, or caused by, fear.

Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.

Shak.

4. Inspiring fear or awe; exciting apprehension or terror; terrible; frightful; dreadful.

This glorious and fearful name, The Lord thy God .

Deut. xxviii. 58.

Death is a fearful thing.

Shak.

In dreams they fearful precipices tread.

Dryden.

Syn. -- Apprehensive; afraid; timid; timorous; horrible; distressing; shocking; frightful; dreadful; awful.

Fearfully adverb In a fearful manner.

Fearfulness noun The state of being fearful.

Fearless adjective Free from fear.

Syn. -- Bold; courageous; intrepid; valorous; valiant; brave; undaunted; dauntless; heroic.

-- Fear"less*ly , adverb -- Fear"less*ness , noun

Fearnaught noun
1. A fearless person.

2. A stout woolen cloth of great thickness; dreadnaught; also, a warm garment.

Fearsome adjective
1. Frightful; causing fear. [ Scotch] "This fearsome wind." Sir W. Scott

2. Easily frightened; timid; timorous. "A silly fearsome thing." B. Taylor

Feasibility noun ; plural Feasibilities (-tiz). [ from Feasible ] The quality of being feasible; practicability; also, that which is feasible; as, before we adopt a plan, let us consider its feasibility .

Men often swallow falsities for truths, dubiosities for certainties, possibilities for feasibilities .

Sir T. Browne.

Feasible adjective [ French faisable , from faire to make or do, from Latin facere . See Fact , Feat .]
1. Capable of being done, executed, or effected; practicable.

Always existing before their eyes as a thing feasible in practice.

Burke.

It was not feasible to gratify so many ambitions.

Beaconsfield.

2. Fit to be used or tailed, as land. [ R.] R. Trumbull.

Feast (fēst) noun [ Middle English feste festival, holiday, feast, Old French feste festival, French fête , from Latin festum , plural festa , from festus joyful, festal; of uncertain origin. Confer Fair , noun , Festal , Fête .]
1. A festival; a holiday; a solemn, or more commonly, a joyous, anniversary.

The seventh day shall be a feast to the Lord.

Ex. xiii. 6.

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.

Luke ii. 41.

» Ecclesiastical feasts are called immovable when they always occur on the same day of the year; otherwise they are called movable .

2. A festive or joyous meal; a grand, ceremonious, or sumptuous entertainment, of which many guests partake; a banquet characterized by tempting variety and abundance of food.

Enough is as good as a feast .

Old Proverb.

Belshazzar the King made a great feast to a thousand of his lords.

Dan. v. 1.

3. That which is partaken of, or shared in, with delight; something highly agreeable; entertainment.

The feast of reason, and the flow of soul.

Pope.

Feast day , a holiday; a day set as a solemn commemorative festival.

Syn. -- Entertainment; regale; banquet; treat; carousal; festivity; festival. -- Feast , Banquet , Festival , Carousal . A feast sets before us viands superior in quantity, variety, and abundance; a banquet is a luxurious feast; a festival is the joyful celebration by good cheer of some agreeable event. Carousal is unrestrained indulgence in frolic and drink.

Feast intransitive verb [ imperfect & past participle Feasted ; present participle & verbal noun Feasting .] [ Middle English festen , confer Old French fester to rest from work, French fêter to celebrate a holiday. See Feast , noun ]
1. To eat sumptuously; to dine or sup on rich provisions, particularly in large companies, and on public festivals.

And his sons went and feasted in their houses.

Job. i. 4.

2. To be highly gratified or delighted.

With my love's picture then my eye doth feast .

Shak.

Feast transitive verb
1. To entertain with sumptuous provisions; to treat at the table bountifully; as, he was feasted by the king. Hayward.

2. To delight; to gratify; as, to feast the soul.

Feast your ears with the music a while.

Shak.

Feaster noun
1. One who fares deliciously.

2. One who entertains magnificently. Johnson.

Feastful adjective Festive; festal; joyful; sumptuous; luxurious. " Feastful days." Milton.

-- Feast"ful*ly , adverb

Feat noun [ Middle English fet , Old French fet , fait , French fait , factum , from Latin facere , factum , to make or do. Confer Fact , Feasible , Do .]
1. An act; a deed; an exploit.

The warlike feats I have done.

Shak.

2. A striking act of strength, skill, or cunning; a trick; as, feats of horsemanship, or of dexterity.

Feat transitive verb To form; to fashion. [ Obsolete]

To the more mature,
A glass that feated them.

Shak.

Feat adjective [ Compar. Feater ; superl. Featest .] [ French fait made, shaped, fit, past participle of faire to make or do. See Feat , noun ] Dexterous in movements or service; skillful; neat; nice; pretty. [ Archaic]

Never master had a page . . . so feat .

Shak.

And look how well my garments sit upon me --
Much feater than before.

Shak.

Feat-bodied adjective Having a feat or trim body. [ Obsolete] Beau. & Fl.

Feateous adjective [ Confer Old French faitis , faitice , fetis , well made, fine, Latin facticius made by art.] Dexterous; neat. [ Obsolete] Johnson.

-- Feat"e*ous*ly , adverb

Feather (fĕ&thlig;"ẽr) noun [ Middle English fether , Anglo-Saxon feðer ; akin to Dutch veder , Old High German fedara , German feder , Icelandic fjöðr , Swedish fjäder , Danish fjæder , Greek ptero`n wing, feather, pe`tesqai to fly, Sanskrit pattra wing, feather, pat to fly, and probably to Latin penna feather, wing. √76, 248. Confer Pen a feather.]
1. One of the peculiar dermal appendages, of several kinds, belonging to birds, as contour feathers, quills, and down.

» An ordinary feather consists of the quill or hollow basal part of the stem; the shaft or rachis, forming the upper, solid part of the stem; the vanes or webs, implanted on the rachis and consisting of a series of slender laminæ or barbs, which usually bear barbules, which in turn usually bear barbicels and interlocking hooks by which they are fastened together. See Down , Quill , Plumage .

2. Kind; nature; species; -- from the proverbial phrase, "Birds of a feather," that is, of the same species. [ R.]

I am not of that feather to shake off
My friend when he must need me.

Shak.

3. The fringe of long hair on the legs of the setter and some other dogs.

4. A tuft of peculiar, long, frizzly hair on a horse.

5. One of the fins or wings on the shaft of an arrow.

6. (Mach. & Carp.) A longitudinal strip projecting as a fin from an object, to strengthen it, or to enter a channel in another object and thereby prevent displacement sidwise but permit motion lengthwise; a spline.

7. A thin wedge driven between the two semicylindrical parts of a divided plug in a hole bored in a stone, to rend the stone. Knight.

8. The angular adjustment of an oar or paddle-wheel float, with reference to a horizontal axis, as it leaves or enters the water.

» Feather is used adjectively or in combination, meaning composed of , or resembling , a feather or feathers ; as, feather fan, feather -heeled, feather duster.

Feather alum (Min.) , a hydrous sulphate of alumina, resulting from volcanic action, and from the decomposition of iron pyrites; -- called also halotrichite . Ure. -- Feather bed , a bed filled with feathers. -- Feather driver , one who prepares feathers by beating. -- Feather duster , a dusting brush of feathers. -- Feather flower , an artifical flower made of feathers, for ladies' headdresses, and other ornamental purposes. -- Feather grass (Botany) , a kind of grass ( Stipa pennata ) which has a long feathery awn rising from one of the chaffy scales which inclose the grain. -- Feather maker , one who makes plumes, etc., of feathers, real or artificial. -- Feather ore (Min.) , a sulphide of antimony and lead, sometimes found in capillary forms and like a cobweb, but also massive. It is a variety of Jamesonite. -- Feather shot , or Feathered shot (Metal.) , copper granulated by pouring into cold water. Raymond. -- Feather spray (Nautical) , the spray thrown up, like pairs of feathers, by the cutwater of a fast-moving vessel. -- Feather star . (Zoology) See Comatula . -- Feather weight . (Racing) (a) Scrupulously exact weight, so that a feather would turn the scale, when a jockey is weighed or weighted. (b) The lightest weight that can be put on the back of a horse in racing. Youatt. (c) In wrestling, boxing, etc., a term applied to the lightest of the classes into which contestants are divided; -- in contradistinction to light weight , middle weight , and heavy weight . -- A feather in the cap an honour, trophy, or mark of distinction. [ Colloq.] -- To be in full feather , to be in full dress or in one's best clothes. [ Collog.] -- To be in high feather , to be in high spirits. [ Collog.] -- To cut a feather . (a) (Nautical) To make the water foam in moving; in allusion to the ripple which a ship throws off from her bows. (b) To make one's self conspicuous. [ Colloq.] -- To show the white feather , to betray cowardice, -- a white feather in the tail of a cock being considered an indication that he is not of the true game breed.

Feather transitive verb [ imperfect & past participle Feathered ; present participle & verbal noun Feathering. ]
1. To furnish with a feather or feathers, as an arrow or a cap.

An eagle had the ill hap to be struck with an arrow feathered from her own wing.

L'Estrange.

2. To adorn, as with feathers; to fringe.

A few birches and oaks still feathered the narrow ravines.

Sir W. Scott.

3. To render light as a feather; to give wings to. [ R.]

The Polonian story perhaps may feather some tedious hours.

Loveday.

4. To enrich; to exalt; to benefit.

They stuck not to say that the king cared not to plume his nobility and people to feather himself.

Bacon. Dryden.

5. To tread, as a cock. Dryden.

To feather one's nest , to provide for one's self especially from property belonging to another, confided to one's care; -- an expression taken from the practice of birds which collect feathers for the lining of their nests. -- To feather an oar (Naut) , to turn it when it leaves the water so that the blade will be horizontal and offer the least resistance to air while reaching for another stroke. -- To tar and feather a person , to smear him with tar and cover him with feathers, as a punishment or an indignity.

Feather intransitive verb
1. To grow or form feathers; to become feathered; -- often with out ; as, the birds are feathering out.

2. To curdle when poured into another liquid, and float about in little flakes or "feathers;" as, the cream feathers . [ Colloq.]

3. To turn to a horizontal plane; -- said of oars.

The feathering oar returns the gleam.

Tickell.

Stopping his sculls in the air to feather accurately.

Macmillan's Mag.

4. To have the appearance of a feather or of feathers; to be or to appear in feathery form.

A clump of ancient cedars feathering in evergreen beauty down to the ground.

Warren.

The ripple feathering from her bows.

Tennyson.

Feather-brained adjective Giddy; frivolous; feather-headed. [ Colloq.]

Feather-edge noun
1. (Zoology) The thin, new growth around the edge of a shell, of an oyster.

2. Any thin, as on a board or a razor.

Feather-edged adjective Having a feather-edge; also, having one edge thinner than the other, as a board; -- in the United States, said only of stuff one edge of which is made as thin as practicable.

Feather-few noun (Botany) Feverfew.

Feather-foil noun [ Feather + foil a leaf.] (Botany) An aquatic plant ( Hottonia palustris ), having finely divided leaves.

Feather-head noun A frivolous or featherbrained person. [ Colloq.] H. James.

Feather-headed adjective Giddy; frivolous; foolish. [ Colloq.] G. Eliot.

Feather-heeled adjective Light- heeled; gay; frisky; frolicsome. [ Colloq.]

Feather-pated adjective Feather- headed; frivolous. [ Colloq.] Sir W. Scott.

Featherbone noun A substitute for whalebone, made from the quills of geese and turkeys.

Feathered adjective
1. Clothed, covered, or fitted with (or as with) feathers or wings; as, a feathered animal; a feathered arrow.

Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury.

Shak.

Nonsense feathered with soft and delicate phrases and pointed with pathetic accent.

Dr. J. Scott.

2. Furnished with anything featherlike; ornamented; fringed; as, land feathered with trees.

3. (Zoology) Having a fringe of feathers, as the legs of certian birds; or of hairs, as the legs of a setter dog.

4. (Her.) Having feathers; -- said of an arrow, when the feathers are of a tincture different from that of the shaft.

Featheriness noun The state or condition of being feathery.

Feathering noun
1. (Architecture) Same as Foliation .

2. The act of turning the blade of the oar, as it rises from the water in rowing, from a vertical to a horizontal position. See To feather an oar , under Feather , transitive verb

3. A covering of feathers.

Feathering float (Nautical) , the float or paddle of a feathering wheel. -- Feathering screw (Nautical) , a screw propeller, of which the blades may be turned so as to move edgewise through the water when the vessel is moving under sail alone. -- Feathering wheel (Nautical) , a paddle wheel whose floats turn automatically so as to dip about perpendicularly into the water and leave in it the same way, avoiding beating on the water in the descent and lifting water in the ascent.

Featherless adjective Destitute of feathers.

Featherly adjective Like feathers. [ Obsolete] Sir T. Browne.

Featherstitch noun A kind of embroidery stitch producing a branching zigzag line.