Where does “feathery” come from?
I need to work backwards through this chain to understand what we're tracing.
However, I notice the chain provided appears problematic: it shows "feather" as the starting point, but then lists mostly suffixes (-y, -ie, -ia, -ivus, -ia, -kos, -kos). This seems to trace the suffix "-y/-ery" rather than the word "feather" itself.
Given the headword is "feathery" and the chain traces suffix formations, let me construct what the chain actually supports:
Feathery derives from English feather plus the English suffix -y (forming adjectives), which continues Middle English -y, from Middle French -ie, from Latin -ia, from Latin -ivus, from Latin -ia, from Proto-Indo-European -kos.
But this is problematic because:
1. The chain doesn't clearly show how we get from these
feathery (English): Resembling feathers; Covered with feathers;...
Definitions
- Resembling feathers; Covered with feathers;...
Ancestry of “feathery”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | English | feather | A branching, hair-like structure that grows on... |
| 2 | German | feder | — |
| 3 | Middle High German | vëdere | — |
| 4 | Old High German | fedara | feather |
| 5 | Proto-West Germanic | feþru | feather |
| 6 | Proto-Germanic | feþrō | feather |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | péth₂r̥ | wing; feather |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | peth₂- | to spread out; to fly |
Words derived from “feathery”