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Tuft
Definitions
- 1 A surname.
- 1 A bunch of feathers, grass or hair, etc., held together at the base.
- 2 a bunch of feathers or hair wordnet
- 3 A cluster of threads drawn tightly through upholstery, a mattress or a quilt, etc., to secure and strengthen the padding.
- 4 a bunch of hair or feathers or growing grass wordnet
- 5 A small clump of trees or bushes.
"“Not far from this place, there is a tuft of about a dozen of tall beeches […].”"
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- 6 A gold tassel on the cap worn by titled undergraduates at English universities. historical
- 7 A person entitled to wear such a tassel. historical
"A college tutor, or a nobleman’s toady, who appears one fine day as my right reverend lord, in a silk apron and a shovel-hat, and assumes benedictory airs over me, is still the same man we remember at Oxbridge, when he was truckling to the tufts, and bullying the poor undergraduates in the lecture-room."
- 1 To provide or decorate with a tuft or tufts. transitive
"His tufted cottage rising through the snow"
- 2 To form into tufts. transitive
- 3 To secure and strengthen (a mattress, quilt, etc.) with tufts. This hinders the stuffing from moving. transitive
"They're never gonna get that Ottoman tufted in time!"
- 4 To be formed into tufts. intransitive
Etymology
From Middle English tuft, toft, tofte, an alteration of earlier *tuffe (> Modern English tuff), from Old French touffe, tuffe, toffe, tofe (“tuft”) (modern French touffe), from Late Latin tufa (“helmet crest”) (near Vegezio). Compare Old English þūf (“tuft”), Old Norse þúfa (“mound”), Swedish tuva (“tussock; grassy hillock”), Swedish tova (“tangled knot”), Swedish tofs (“tuft, tassel”), from Proto-Germanic *þūbǭ (“tube”), *þūbaz; akin to Latin tūber (“hump, swelling”), Ancient Greek τῡ́φη (tū́phē, “cattail (used to stuff beds)”).
From Middle English tuft, toft, tofte, an alteration of earlier *tuffe (> Modern English tuff), from Old French touffe, tuffe, toffe, tofe (“tuft”) (modern French touffe), from Late Latin tufa (“helmet crest”) (near Vegezio). Compare Old English þūf (“tuft”), Old Norse þúfa (“mound”), Swedish tuva (“tussock; grassy hillock”), Swedish tova (“tangled knot”), Swedish tofs (“tuft, tassel”), from Proto-Germanic *þūbǭ (“tube”), *þūbaz; akin to Latin tūber (“hump, swelling”), Ancient Greek τῡ́φη (tū́phē, “cattail (used to stuff beds)”).
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