eiderdown

plural eiderdowns · alternative eider down

1. uncountableThe down of the eider duck, used for stuffing pillows and quilts.

   A great sea lifted us high and, crashing down with a deafening roar, carried us swiftly along on light foam as soft as eiderdown.

   1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka, Eland, published 2019, page 80

   3 more examples

   The landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven’s sake to quit—the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 3”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   This particular down, eiderdown, is collected almost exclusively in Iceland from the nests of the Eider duck in a process that is said to be harmless to the birds and eggs.

   2014, Theodore Gray, photography by Nick Mann, The Elements and the Architecture of Everything, Paperback 2018 Edition, page 126

   “Th-thank you, Spittleworth. You are a true friend,” said the king, deeply moved, and he fumbled to extract a hand from the eiderdown, and clasped that of the cunning lord.

   2020, J. K. Rowling, The Ickabog, Scholastic, →ISBN, page 63

2. countableA quilt stuffed with this down.

   She jerked up in bed, clutching the eiderdown; her heart beat. What could it be?

   1920, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Revelations”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 263

   2 more examples

   The landlord was near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven’s sake to quit—the bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing in the world could make eider down of a pine plank.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 3”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   I entered. It was a very small room, overcrowded with furniture of the style which the French know as Louis Philippe. There was a large wooden bedstead on which was a billowing red eiderdown, and there was a large wardrobe, a round table, a very small washstand, and two stuffed chairs covered with red rep.

   1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 11”, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC