tuft Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a bunch of hair or feathers or growing grass
    tussock.
  2. noun a bunch of feathers or hair

WordNet

Tuft noun
Etymology
Prov. E. tuff, F. touffe; of German origin; cf. G. zopf a weft of hair, pigtail, top of a tree. See Top summit.
Definitions
  1. A collection of small, flexible, or soft things in a knot or bunch; a waving or bending and spreading cluster; as, a tuft of flowers or feathers.
  2. A cluster; a clump; as, a tuft of plants.
    Under a tuft of shade. Milton.
    Green lake, and cedar fuft, and spicy glade. Keble.
  3. A nobleman, or person of quality, especially in the English universities; -- so called from the tuft, or gold tassel, on the cap worn by them. Cant, Eng.
    Several young tufts, and others of the faster men. T. Hughes.
Tuft transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Tufted; present participle & verbal noun Tufting
Definitions
  1. To separate into tufts.
  2. To adorn with tufts or with a tuft. Thomson.
Tuft intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To grow in, or form, a tuft or tufts.

Webster 1913