fletchers

Noun

fletcher (plural fletchers)

1. One who fletches or feathers arrows.
   • This thing, if a man take not hede on, he may chaunce have cauſe to ſay ſo of his fletcher, as in dreſſinge of meate is commonlye ſayde of cookes: and that is, that God ſendeth us good feathers, but the devill noughtye fletchers.1544 (date written; published 1571), Roger Ascham, Toxophilus, the Schole, or Partitions, of Shooting. […], London: […] Thomas Marshe, →OCLC; republished in The English Works of Roger Ascham, […]...
2. A device to assist in fletching or feathering arrows.
   • I don't like using a fletcher, the single feather ones are too slow, and the three feather ones inaccurate.1940, Archery News, volumes 19-27, page 35
3. Generally, a manufacturer of bows and arrows.
   • Robert Frankham of Colchester, fletcher, or maker of bows and arrowy, did, by his will, dated the 20th of July, 1577, give a yearly rent-charge of thirteen shillings and four-pence out of a tenement and six acres of land in West Bergholt, for ever;1810, The history and antiquities of the borough of Colchester, in the County of Essex
4. (UK, dated, dialectal, possibly) A weir or dam.
   • […] the defendants cut down and lowered, and kept and continued so cut down and lowered, a part of the bank of the said river, situate and being between the mill of the defendants and the mill of the plaintiff, and on a part of the said bank so lowered, built and erected, and kept and continued so...1831, Liggins v. Inge, T. T. 1831 (court case), in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the English Courts (1832), page 289

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