knock someone down with a feather

present singular third person knocks someone down with a feather · participle present knocking someone down with a feather · participle past knocked someone down with a feather · past knocked someone down with a feather

1. alternativeidiomaticinformalAlternative form of knock someone over with a feather.

   She hardly, she said, believed her own senses. You might have knocked her down with a feather. She did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels.

   1838 February 17, “Review of Books. Hood’s Own. No. 1. Baily.”, in The Idler, and Breakfast-table Companion; a New and Fashionable Weekly Journal of Literature, Fine Arts, Music, Amusement, Exhibitions, Varieties, Satire, and the Stage, volume II, numbers 7 (nos. 50 and 51), London: Published for the proprietor by George Denney, at the office, 7, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, →OCLC, page 50, column 2

   1 more example

   “No doubt the fellow was very useful to her. But you could have knocked us all down with a feather when, three months ago, she suddenly announced that she and Alfred were engaged! The fellow must be at least twenty years younger than she is! It’s simply bare-faced fortune hunting; but there you are—she is her own mistress, and she’s married him.”

   1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 7