Word.ws English Dictionary

feathered one's nest

feathered one's nest is the simple past and past participle of feather one's nest.

Meaning of feather one's nest

Verb

feather one's nest (third-person singular simple present feathers one's nest, present participle feathering one's nest, simple past and past participle feathered one's nest)

  1. (idiomatic) To achieve benefits, especially financial ones, by taking advantage of the opportunities with which one is presented; to amass a comfortable amount of personal wealth; especially, to do so to a degree that involves venality (e.g., insider trading, police corruption).
    • It may do him some harm, perhaps, but Dempster must have feathered his nest pretty well; he can afford to lose a little business.1857, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “[Janet’s Repentance.] Chapter 13”, in Scenes of Clerical Life […], volume II, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published January 1858...

Questions about feathered one's nest

What is feathered one's nest the simple past and past participle of?
Feathered one's nest is the simple past and past participle of feather one's nest.

Words near feathered one's nest in the dictionary

  1. feathered
  2. feathered folk
  3. feathered folks
  4. feathered friend
  5. feathered friends
  6. feathered one's nest
  7. feathered one's own nest
  8. feathered oof-bird
  9. feathered oof-birds
  10. featheredge
  11. featheredged

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: feathered one's nest (page history and authors); feather one's nest (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “feathered one's nest.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/feathered_one%27s_nest. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.