pull someone's plumes

present singular third person pulls someone's plumes · participle present pulling someone's plumes · participle past pulled someone's plumes · past pulled someone's plumes

1. idiomaticobsoleteTo humble, to puncture the pride of

   How I ſhall pull your Plumes, Lords, How I ſhall humble you within theſe two Days?

   1647, John Fletcher, A Wife for a Month, act V, scene i

   2 more examples

   that Tamburlaine: That like a Foxe in midſt of harueſt time, Dooth pray vppon my flockes of Passengers: And as I heare, doth meane to pull my plumes […]

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene i

   Let frantike Talbot triumph for a while, And like a Peacock ſweepe along his tayle, Wee’le pull his Plumes, and take away his Trayne, If Dolphin and the reſt will be but rul’d.

   1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii], page 108, column 2