# Did the Spartans ever use the white feather or any clolor or number of feathers as a sign of cowardice? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 11, 2022, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-spartans-ever-use-the-white-feather-or-any-clolor-or-number-of-feathers-as-a-sign-of-cowardice/976337 "2022-12-11T15:09:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-spartans-ever-use-the-white-feather-or-any-clolor-or-number-of-feathers-as-a-sign-of-cowardice/976337/1 "2022-12-11T15:09:18Z")
Did the Spartans ever use the white feather or any color or number of feathers as a sign of cowardice? If not the Spartans which ancient cultures did? ---
**Author:** ![FrenchDunadan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frenchdunadan/32/5449_2.png) [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-spartans-ever-use-the-white-feather-or-any-clolor-or-number-of-feathers-as-a-sign-of-cowardice/976337/2 "2022-12-11T15:17:04Z")
Well the ancient culture of Britain… in WW1. Women gave a white feather to young men in civilian clothes they met in the streets, presumably to guilt them of not having joined the Army (that was on an all-voluntary force until 1917). The meaning was from a book of early 20th century, with three soldiers going to war and the fourth receiving three white feathers from their spouses, prompting him to go. ---
**Author:** ![Octagon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/2acd7d/32.png) [@Octagon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Octagon)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-spartans-ever-use-the-white-feather-or-any-clolor-or-number-of-feathers-as-a-sign-of-cowardice/976337/3 "2022-12-11T15:35:15Z")
I was wondering if the British copied that tradition from the Greeks or Romans. I haven’t been able to trace it further back before WWI. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-spartans-ever-use-the-white-feather-or-any-clolor-or-number-of-feathers-as-a-sign-of-cowardice/976337/4 "2022-12-11T15:40:44Z")
According the the [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather), it derives from cockfighting. > The use of the phrase “white feather” to symbolise cowardice is attested from the late 18th century, according to the _[Oxford English Dictionary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_English_Dictionary)_. The OED cites _A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue_ (1785), in which [lexicographer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexicography) [Francis Grose](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Grose) wrote “White feather, he has a white feather, he is a coward, an allusion to a game cock, where having a white feather, is a proof he is not of the true game breed”.[[3]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_feather#cite_note-3) This was in the context of [cockfighting](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockfighting), a common entertainment in [Georgian England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian_England). ---
**Author:** ![Kropotkin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kropotkin/32/18045_2.png) [@Kropotkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kropotkin)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2022, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-spartans-ever-use-the-white-feather-or-any-clolor-or-number-of-feathers-as-a-sign-of-cowardice/976337/5 "2022-12-11T15:45:07Z")
IWW poet and organizer Joe Hill wrote a song about a strike of railway navvies in British Columbia in 1912, and one line has a striker saying “we’ll show no white feather where the Fraser River Flows”