dowle
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
Compare Old French douille (“soft”), and English ductile.
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
dowle
- feathery or woolly down; filament of a feather
- #* 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
- a. 1859, De Quincey, Notes on Godwin Foster and Hazlitt, at page 304 in the collected works' volume of 1864.
- No feather, or dowle of a feather, but was heavy enough for him.
- #*
Translations edit
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “dowle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)