noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An accessory plume arising from the posterior of the contour feathers of many birds.
2. 2
   a supplementary feather (usually small) on the underside of the base of the shaft of some feathers in some birds wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

hypoptilumhypoptilumhypotilehypotile

Etymology

From after- + shaft.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.