What is the meaning of the phrase ‘as light as a feather’?
Extremely lightweight.
What is the origin of the phrase ‘as light as a feather’?
The phrase ‘as ;ight as a feather’ is a simile, which is a type of a metaphor in which two things are compared using either the word ‘as’ or ‘like’. The phrase is not meant literally, since very few items are actually as light as a feather. This means that the phrase is an idiom, meaning that the phrase should be considered as a whole, rather than be deduced from the individual words.
The precise origin of the phrase ‘as light as a feather’ is unknown because it appears to have a long history of use across different languages., However, we do know that the word ‘feather’ has been used since the year 1760 to describe the lightest allowable burden in horse racing.
The phrase is related to another term ‘featherweight’ which sees its origin in the English language in the year 1812, and again it was used in the context of horse racing
But despite its frequent use in horse racing, the terms ‘featherweight’ and ‘light as a feather’ have been used to describe a variety of other things. For instance, some cakes are often described as ‘light as a feather’, but this is to describe the texture of the cake as opposed to its weight.
