tar-and-feather

1. 1.

   smear the body of (someone) with tar and feathers; done in some societies as punishment

   “The thief was tarred and feathered”

   Broaderpunish

Questions about tar-and-feather

What does tar-and-feather mean?

tar-and-feather means "smear the body of (someone) with tar and feathers; done in some societies as punishment".

How many syllables are in tar-and-feather?

tar-and-feather has 5 syllables and divides as ta-r-and--fe-a-ther under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is tar-and-feather a common word?

tar-and-feather is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.