English

Alternative forms

• dowl, doul

Noun

dowle

1. feathery or woolly down; filament of a feather
   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 3 scene 3

     You fools! I and my fellows

     Are ministers of fate: the elements

     Of whom your swords are temper'd may as well

     Wound the loud winds, or with bemock'd-at stabs

     Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish

     One dowle that's in my plume; [...]

   • De Quincey, Notes on Godwin Foster and Hazlitt, at page 304 in the collected works' volume of 1864.

     No feather, or dowle of a feather, but was heavy enough for him.

Translations