Other forms: plumages
Plumage is all the feathers covering one bird. Bright plumage, breeding plumage, dull winter plumage.
Many species have two: a bright breeding plumage and a dull one for the rest of the year, which is why a bird can be hard to recognise in winter. Feathers are replaced by moulting, and a bird that cannot moult properly cannot fly properly either.
1nounplumageAll the feathers covering one bird.
“The male peacock shows off his colourful plumage to attract a mate.”
plumage is feathers.
PLUMage → every PLUME on the bird
One feather is a plume. Plumage is every plume on the bird, all at once.
hooks ontoplume
Old French plumage comes from plume, a feather, from Latin pluma.
Proto-Indo-European
*plew-
Proto-Indo-European
*plewk- — to flow; to fly; to run; etc.
Latin
plūma — feather, plume
Old French
plumage — bird’s feathers collectively
Middle French
plumage
Middle English
plumage
English, today
plumage
Built from
From Late Middle English plumage, plummage (“bird’s feathers collectively, plumage; (falconry) feathers fed to a hawk to cause it to regurgitate, casting”), from Middle French plumage, plomage (“bird’s feathers collectively; person’s (showy) clothing”), from Old French plumage (“bird’s feathers collectively”) (modern French plumage), from plume (“feather, plume”) + -age. Plume is derived from Latin plūma (“feather, plume”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European plewk- (“to flow; to fly; to run; etc.”), from Proto-Indo-European plew- (“to flow; to fly; to run”). by surface analysis, plume + -age.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA