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Feature comes from Old French faiture ‘action; manner’, from Latin factūra ‘a making’, and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- ‘to do, put’.

1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*dʰeh₁-¹‘to do’reconstructed
2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfaciō¹‘do’
3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfactus¹‘done’
4. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfactūra¹
5. Old Frenchc. 842–1400faiture¹
6. Anglo-Normanc. 1066–1400feture¹
7. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500feture¹‘form, bodily profile’
8. Englishearliest quotation 1596feature¹

1. ¹ Wiktionary, English feature
2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1596, Edmund Spenser, Book IV, Canto II: “all the powres of nature, / Which she by…”.