tuft
See also: Tuft
English
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), from Germanic (compare Old English þūf (“tuft”), Old Norse þúfa (“mound”), Swedish tuva (“tussock; grassy hillock”)), from Proto-Germanic *þūbǭ (“tube”), *þūbaz; akin to Latin tūber (“hump, swelling”), Ancient Greek τῡ́φη (tū́phē, “cattail (used to stuff beds)”). Equivalent to tuff.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /tʌft/
Audio (UK) (file) - Rhymes: -ʌft
Noun
tuft (plural tufts)
- A bunch of feathers, grass or hair, etc., held together at the base.
- A cluster of threads drawn tightly through upholstery, a mattress or a quilt, etc., to secure and strengthen the padding.
- A small clump of trees or bushes.
- 1755, Tobias Smollett, translating Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Volume One, II.4:
- “Not far from this place, there is a tuft of about a dozen of tall beeches […] .”
- 1755, Tobias Smollett, translating Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Volume One, II.4:
- (historical) A gold tassel on the cap worn by titled undergraduates at English universities.
- (historical) A person entitled to wear such a tassel.
- 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 62, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, OCLC 2057953:
- 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.
- 1859–1861, [Thomas Hughes], Tom Brown at Oxford: […], (please specify |part=1 or 2), Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, published 1861, OCLC 2753050:
- Several young tufts, and others of the faster men.
-
Derived terms
- tufthunting
- tufthunter
Translations
bunch
|
cluster of threads
|
clump of trees
|
gold tassel
|
person wearing the tassel
|
Verb
tuft (third-person singular simple present tufts, present participle tufting, simple past and past participle tufted)
- (transitive) To provide or decorate with a tuft or tufts.
- 1726, James Thomson, “Winter”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, OCLC 642619686:
- His tufted cottage rising through the snow
-
- (transitive) To form into tufts.
- (transitive) To secure and strengthen (a mattress, quilt, etc.) with tufts. This hinders the stuffing from moving.
- 2017 December 2, “The Impossible Summit of Mt. Neverrest!”, in DuckTales, season 1, episode 3, 0:13 from the start:
- They're never gonna get that Ottoman tufted in time!
-
- (intransitive) To be formed into tufts.
Translations
provide or decorate with tufts
|
form into tufts
|
secure with tufts
|
be formed into tufts
|
Norwegian Nynorsk
Alternative forms
- tupt, túpt, toft, tøpt, tøft, typt, tyft (dialectal)
Etymology
From Old Norse tupt, topt, from Proto-Germanic *tumþiz and/or *tumftō. Doublet of tomt. Compare Faroese toft and Icelandic tóft.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /tʊft/
Noun
tuft f (definite singular tufta, indefinite plural tufter, definite plural tuftene)
- homestead, ground where a house stands
- … der han sjølv heve Tufterna gravet
og set sjølv sine Hus uppaa deim.- … where he has dug the grounds
and sets his houses on them.
- … where he has dug the grounds
- an earth floor
- a plot (of land), site, (building) lot
Synonyms
- tomt
Derived terms
- bjortuft (“remains after a beaver dam”)
- branntuft (“place where a house has burnt down”)
- butuft
- ervetuft
- fjøstuft
- hustuft
- nausttuft
- stovetuft
Related terms
- tofte
- tufte
- tuftekall
- tyfta
References
- “tuft” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.
- “tuft” in Ivar Aasen (1873) Norsk Ordbog med dansk Forklaring