feather one's nest

English

Alternative forms

• feather one's own nest

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

feather one's nest (third-person singular simple present feathers one's nest, present participle feathering one's nest, simple past and past participle feathered one's nest)

1. (idiomatic) To achieve benefits, especially financial ones, by taking advantage of the opportunities with which one is presented; to amass a comfortable amount of personal wealth; especially, to do so to a degree that involves venality.

   Synonyms: line one's pockets, look out for number one

   Hypernym: enrich (oneself)

   • 1857, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “[Janet’s Repentance.] Chapter 13”, in Scenes of Clerical Life [...] In Two Volumes, volume II, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, published January 1858, →OCLC, page 229:

     It may do him some harm, perhaps, but Dempster must have feathered his nest pretty well; he can afford to lose a little business.

   • 2024 July 20, Tabby Kinder, George Hammond, Hannah Murphy, Alex Rogers, quoting Michael Moritz, “Has Silicon Valley gone Maga?”, in FT Weekend, Big Read, page 6:

     “It's a handful of west coast financiers doing what Wall Street bankers have long done—feathering their nests,” says Michael Moritz, the billionaire former leader of Sequoia Capital.

Translations

to achieve benefits, especially financial ones

Finnish: täyttää taskujaan Icelandic: (to poke fire to one's cake) skara eld að eigin köku, (to poke fire to one's cake) skara eld að sinni köku, ota sínum tota Polish: mościć sobie gniazdko impf Russian: (to warm one's hands) нагре́ть ру́ки pf (nagrétʹ rúki), (to stuff one's pockets) наби́ть карма́ны pf (nabítʹ karmány) Spanish: hacer su agosto (es) Walloon: (to fatten one's fingers) s' ecråxhî les doets (wa) Welsh: pluo ei nyth

See also

• every man for himself
• featherbed
• nest egg

References

• “feather one's nest”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.