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tuft

English

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tuft¹

  • /tʌft/ Canada, US, UK
  • /tɐft/ Australia, New Zealand

Rhymes with -ʌft

Where it comes from

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 tūfa (“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)”).

noun tufts

  1. A bunch of feathers, grass or hair, etc., held together at the base.
  2. A cluster of threads drawn tightly through upholstery, a mattress or a quilt, etc., to secure and strengthen the padding.
  3. A small clump of trees or bushes. “Not far from this place, there is a tuft of about a dozen of tall beeches […].”
  4. historical A gold tassel on the cap worn by titled undergraduates at English universities.
  5. historical A person entitled to wear such a tassel. 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-r

verb tufts · tufting · tufted

  1. transitive To provide or decorate with a tuft or tufts. His tufted cottage rising through the snow
  2. transitive To form into tufts.
  3. transitive To secure and strengthen (a mattress, quilt, etc.) with tufts. This hinders the stuffing from moving. They're never gonna get that Ottoman tufted in time!
  4. intransitive To be formed into tufts.

Tuft²

proper noun Tufts

  1. A surname.

Translations

Every language

noun bunch

Españolmechón, penacho, manojo, haz, champa
中文綹 /绺 liǔ
Portuguêstufo
Françaistouffe
DeutschBüschel, Tuff
Italianocespo, ciuffo, ciocca, zolla
Românăsmoc, floc, șuviță
Русскийпучо́к pučók

noun cluster of threads

Italianofiocco, rappa

noun clump of trees

Italianomacchia d'alberi

noun gold tassel

Italianonappina dorata

verb provide or decorate with tufts

Italianoinfiocchettare, ornare di ciuffi, impennacchiare

verb secure with tufts

Italianotrapuntare

verb be formed into tufts

Italianoa forma di ciuffo

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Cite this
MLA

"tuft." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/tuft. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

tuft. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/tuft

Chicago

"tuft." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/tuft.

BibTeX
@misc{tuft_2026,
  title = {tuft},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/tuft},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}