Word.ws English Dictionary

smoothing someone's feathers

smoothing someone's feathers is the present participle and gerund of smooth someone's feathers.

Meaning of smooth someone's feathers

Verb

smooth someone's feathers (third-person singular simple present smooths someone's feathers, present participle smoothing someone's feathers, simple past and past participle smoothed someone's feathers)

  1. To soothe (someone) who has had their feathers ruffled; to pacify (someone) who is upset.
    • L'Estrange bowed and offered his arm, while Mr Millis smoothed his ruffled feathers, and went back to the other young men , — smoothed his feathers, because it would never have answered to let others see that Mr Millis had got the worst of an encounter of any kind.1882, William George Hamley, Traseaden Hall: "when George the Third was King", page 127

Questions about smoothing someone's feathers

What is smoothing someone's feathers the present participle and gerund of?
Smoothing someone's feathers is the present participle and gerund of smooth someone's feathers.

Words near smoothing someone's feathers in the dictionary

  1. smoothing down
  2. smoothing iron
  3. smoothing irons
  4. smoothing out
  5. smoothing over
  6. smoothing someone's feathers
  7. smoothing up
  8. smoothingly
  9. smoothings
  10. smoothish
  11. smoothlier

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: smoothing someone's feathers (page history and authors); smooth someone's feathers (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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