FEELER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Feeler

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/fˈilər/ Listen

noun

Feeler n.

One who, or that which, feels.

(Zool.) One of the sense organs or certain animals (as insects), which are used in testing objects by touch and in searching for food; an antenna; a palp. "Insects... perpetually feeling and searching before them with their feelers or antennae."

Anything, as a proposal, observation, etc., put forth or thrown out in order to ascertain the views of others; something tentative.

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Etymology of 'Feeler'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Feeler" Quotes from Famous Books

... you'll find her at home before then. Try to keep her amused, and also to give her a little sound advice. If you could arrange something for to-morrow which would please her, something that we could all three do together. Try to put out a feeler, too, for the summer; see if there's anything she wants to do, a cruise that we might all three take; anything you can think of. I don't count upon seeing her to-night, myself; still if she would like me to come, or ...

— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... it was wholesome; and went off without seeming in the least dismayed by the intelligence. If Eleanor had ventured that remark as a feeler, she was utterly discomfited. She went about her pretty work of getting the little table ready and acquainting herself with the details of her cupboard arrangements, feeling a little amused ...

— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner

... appropriation had not come. Harry said he had written to hurry up the money and it would be along presently. So the work continued, on Monday. Stone's Landing was making quite a stir in the vicinity, by this time. Sellers threw a lot or two on the market, "as a feeler," and they sold well. He re-clothed his family, laid in a good stock of provisions, and still had money left. He started a bank account, in a small way—and mentioned the deposit casually to friends; and to strangers, too; to everybody, in fact; but ...

— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... neck, and hefted him, and says, 'Why, blame my cats if he don't weigh five pound!' and turned him upside down, and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after that feeler, but ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... a "feeler," to see what kind of a man the white chief was. The white chief, whose name was Lieutenant-Colonel E. S. Otis, of the Twenty-second Infantry, ...

— Boys' Book of Indian Warriors - and Heroic Indian Women • Edwin L. Sabin

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