knock someone down with a feather

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knock someone down with a feather (third-person singular simple present knocks someone down with a feather, present participle knocking someone down with a feather, simple past and past participle knocked someone down with a feather)

1. (idiomatic, informal) Alternative form of knock someone over with a feather.
   • 1838 February 17, “Review of Books. Hood’s Own. No. 1. Baily.”, in The Idler, and Breakfast-table Companion; a New and Fashionable Weekly Journal of Literature, Fine Arts, Music, Amusement, Exhibitions, Varieties, Satire, and the Stage, volume II, numbers 7 (nos. 50 and 51), London: Published for the proprietor by George Denney, at the office, 7, Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, →OCLC, page 50, column 2:

     She hardly, she said, believed her own senses. You might have knocked her down with a feather. She did not know whether she stood on her head or her heels.