white feather
1
9.5
- noun
- Offensive
:
pluma blanca
- In the old days, a soldier who turned back from the fight might receive a white feather as an accusation of cowardice.
Examples
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White Feather...
Blog text (25) -
He won the white feather.
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And thirdly, he owed it to his wife not to show the white feather.
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Those who refuse to commit are given a white feather, a symbol of cowardice and treachery.
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Those who refuse to commit in battle are often marked with a white feather as a sign of cowardice.
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When she saw him back down from the challenge, she couldn't help but think of the white feather he deserved.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a symbol of cowardice' is not transparently built from the literal senses of 'white' (a colour) and 'feather' (a bird’s plume); a learner who only knows the constituent words would most likely interpret it literally. Understanding this MWE requires cultural/historical knowledge (e.g., the practice of giving a white feather as an accusation of cowardice) and therefore is unpredictable to a B1 learner.
Etymology
White feather comes from a practice during the First World War when women would give a man a real white feather to show they thought he was a coward. That strong image of a simple feather as a public 'accusation' is why white feather means 'a symbol of cowardice' today.