Word.ws English Dictionary

feathering one's nest

feathering one's nest is the present participle and gerund 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 feathering one's nest

What is feathering one's nest the present participle and gerund of?
Feathering one's nest is the present participle and gerund of feather one's nest.

Words near feathering one's nest in the dictionary

  1. featheries
  2. featheriest
  3. featherily
  4. featheriness
  5. feathering
  6. feathering one's nest
  7. feathering one's own nest
  8. feathering strip
  9. feathering strips
  10. featherings
  11. featherleaf

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: feathering 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.

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