plumage

English

Etymology

From Old French plumage (14c.), itself from plume (“feather”) (from Latin pluma (“feather, down”), from a Proto-Indo-European base *plews- (“to pluck, a feather, fleece”) + -age.

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: plo͞om'ĭj, IPA^(key): /ˈpluːmɪdʒ/
• Rhymes: -uːmɪdʒ

Noun

plumage (countable and uncountable, plural plumages)

1. Feathers, either covering a bird or used ornamentally
   • 1969, Monty Python, "Monty Python’s Flying Circus" (Dead Parrot sketch)

     [Owner]: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue, idn'it, ay? Beautiful plumage!

     [Mr. Praline]: The plumage don't enter into it. It's stone dead.

2. Finery or elaborate dress.

Related terms

• plumate
• plumelet

Translations

feathers

• Burmese: အမွေး (my) (a.mwe:)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 羽毛 (zh) (yǔmáo)

• Czech: peří n
• Danish: fjerdragt c
• Dutch: pluimage, gevederte (nl) n, verenkleed n
• Esperanto: plumaro
• Finnish: höyhenpeite (fi), höyhenet (fi), höyhenpuku (fi)
• French: plumage (fr) m, plume (fr) f (pars pro toto)
• German: Gefieder (de) n, Vogelgefieder n, Federkleid (de) n, Federschmuck m
• Greek: φτέρωμα (el) n (ftéroma)
• Hungarian: toll (hu), tollazat
• Italian: piumaggio (it) m, piume (it) f pl
• Japanese: 羽毛 (ja) (うもう, umō)

• Korean: 깃털 (ko) (gitteol)
• Macedonian: перје n (perje)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: fjærdrakt m, f, fjørdrakt m, f

  Nynorsk: fjørdrakt f

• Polish: pierze (pl) n
• Portuguese: plumagem (pt) f
• Russian: опере́ние (ru) n (operénije)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: перје n

  Roman: perje (sh) n

• Spanish: plumaje (es) m
• Swedish: fjäderdräkt c
• Volapük: (collective) plümem (vo), (collective) bödaplümem, (older term) penaklot

finery or elaborate dress

• Dutch: vol ornaat

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French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ply.maʒ/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

plumage m (plural plumages)

1. plumage, a bird's feathers

Related terms

• plumaison, plumée
• plumer

Further reading

• “plumage” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).