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featherbed

The English word “featherbed” has 5 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A mattress stuffed with feathers.
  2. An area of bog where a layer of moss covers a pool of water or mud, presenting a hazard to walkers who may fall through it. (Also in UK and Irish placenames.)
  3. A soft, slow pitch of predictable bounce.

verb

  1. To treat someone with excessive indulgence; to pamper, cosset or mollycoddle.
  2. To engage in featherbedding; to employ more workers than necessary to fulfill a labor union requirement.

Etymology

From feather + bed.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.