featherless

1 4.1

An animal, often a bird, that does not have the soft outer covering

adjective
/ˈfɛðərləs/

: sin plumas

I saw a featherless bird waddling awkwardly across the grass.
featherless bird

Examples

After the storm, the featherless chicks huddled together for warmth under their mother's care.
- Uh, see that fat, featherless flying thing?

Babe: Pig in the City (1998)
One pair, called Warblers, looked like featherless birds.

Fiction book (2001)
-Have you no mercy for a poor, featherless, molting crow...

The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue (1998)
It is quite stunning to see how these blind, featherless little hatchlings go about their dirty work.
His latest project, titled More Than Human, consists of intimate studio portraits of various wild animals, from various monkeys and apes to specially bred featherless chickens.

Blog text (33)
The zoologist described the rare species as having a peculiar, featherless appearance.

Synonyms

unfeathered

vsfeatherless

8.2

Having no feathers on part or all of the body

is the general term for animals missing plumage rather than specific causes

plucked

vsfeatherless

3.3

A bird or animal with its feathers removed before cooking

means lacking plumage in any way not only after removal for food

Antonyms

feathered

28 1.6

Covered or decorated with feathers

Compounds

featherless biped

9.9

A person who walks on two legs and has no feathers

How Feathered

in full feather

Archaic

9.2

feathered

28 1.6

featherless

1 4.1

Surface Forms

featherless positive

Morphology

featherless = feather (transparent) = feather + less

The adjective is formed by adding the productive suffix '-less' to 'feather', clearly meaning 'without feathers'.

Etymology

Featherless is simply made from feather and the ending -less, where feather is a bird's covering and -less means 'without', so it literally means 'without feathers'.