feathered friend

noun

"feathered-friend" is a 15-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“feathered friend” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
16
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A bird.

Corpus desk

Index EN-feathered-friend · feathered friend · English

feathered friend · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 16 letters
  • VOW-6 6 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "F" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for feathered friend
PropertyValue
Headwordfeathered friend
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters16
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “feathered friend” in English

feathered friendfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

feathered friend is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A bird.".

feathered friend doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is feathered friend, spelled F-E-A-T-H-E-R-E-D- -F-R-I-E-N-D.

Definition

  1. 1
    A bird.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how feathered friend appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. This little family is said to live together on the most affectionate terms. The feline part of it are so 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑜𝑛𝑑 of their feathered friends, that they are almost ready 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑢𝑝.
  2. The illustrations accompanying this week's "Notes of a Naturalist in Western Australia" show two of the conspicuous "feathered friends" which he describes.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "feathered friend"?
"feathered friend" is spelled F-E-A-T-H-E-R-E-D- -F-R-I-E-N-D.
What does "feathered friend" mean?
As a noun, "feathered friend" means: A bird.
What language does "feathered friend" come from?
"feathered friend" is a English word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list