Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Tuft   Listen
noun
Tuft  n.  
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." "Green lake, and cedar fuft, and spicy glade."
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."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Tuft" Quotes from Famous Books



... With us it is a real offence to give any man a higher rank than belongs to him,—to say captain, for instance, to a lieutenant,—and that is one of our usages which it would be well to copy. But we have follies enough, God knows; that duchess address, with all its tuft-hunting signatures, is a thing to make Englishwomen ashamed. Well, they caught it deservedly in an address from American women, written probably by some very clever American man. No, I have not seen Longfellow's lines on the Duke. One gets sick of the very name. Henry is exceedingly ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... June days, the bloom of these mountains is beyond expression delightful. Last visiting these heights ere she vanishes, Spring, like the sunset, flings her sweetest charms upon them. Each tuft of upland grass is musked like a bouquet with perfume. The balmy breeze swings to and fro like a censer. On one side the eye follows for the space of an eagle's flight, the serpentine mountain chains, southwards from the great purple dome of Taconic—the St. Peter's of these hills—northwards ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville

... doing. He drew from his breast pocket a little sixpenny looking-glass, and hung it on one of the roots that stuck out from the bank. Then he dressed himself in one of the old-fashioned gowns and a great pinked-out collar. Then he took out a razor. Tuft by tuft the soft brown beard fell down into the sand, and the little ants took it to line their nests with. Then the glass showed a face surrounded by a frilled cap, white as a woman's, with a little mouth, a very short upper ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... a new wonder—a living plant of crystal, studded with crystal bells, from each of which waved a crown of delicate arms. It was the first time that Elsley had ever seen one of those exquisite zoophytes which stud every rock and every tuft of weed. ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley

... between the brother Amalungs, and curses on the false Sibich, whose intrigues had brought it to pass. Then the moon shone forth, and Reinald showed Hildebrand from afar the great yellow tent with three golden tufts where the traitor Sibich was sleeping; and the green tent with the silver tuft in which Witig and his Amalungs were dreaming of battle with the Huns; and the black tent, then empty of its lord, that was the tent of Reinald himself. And Hildebrand told Reinald the ordering of the troops of Theodoric, showing him Theodoric's tent with five poles ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin

... other reproach—we're such outrageous tuft-hunters. I shall not deny having seen an American run himself out of breath to get a peep at a duke, but I never knew an American spend money to see one, unless the American was too beastly rich to care for money ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... Society is one who, having in early life abdicated every claim to independent thought or action, is content to attach himself to the skirts and coat-tails of the great, and to exist for a long time as a mere appendage in mansions selected by the unerring instinct of a professional tuft-hunter. It is as common a mistake to suppose that all tuft-hunters are necessarily of lowly birth and of inferior social position, as it is to believe them all to be offensive in manner and shallow in artifice. The coarse but honest ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... a thanks, and dropped into the chair, his thin, wrinkled face drawing into a queer smile. He let the package fall across his knees, and his hat dropped from his trembling fingers. He stroked a tuft of whisker under ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore

... end of the strong wicked man, just overtaken by Death and Sin, whom he has served on earth. It is said that the tuft on the lance indicates his murderous character, being of such unusual size. You know the use of that appendage was to prevent blood running down from the spearhead to the hands. They also think that the object under the horse's off hind foot is ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque

... trough : trogo. trousers : pantalono. trout : truto. trowel : trulo. tramp : (cards), atuto. trumpet : trumpeto. trunk : (animal) rostro; (tree) trunko; (box) kofro; (body) torso. trust : fidi. try : provi, peni. Tsar : Caro. tuber : tubero. tuft : tufo. tumbler : glaso. tumult : tumulto. tune : ario, melodio; agordi. turbot : rombfisxo. turkey : meleagro. turn : turn'i, -igxi; torni; pivoti; vico. turnip : napo. turpentine : terebinto. turquoise : turkiso. turtle-dove : turto. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... man drew nearer, and I began to perceive my error. Gamekeepers do not usually paint their faces red and green, neither do they wear scalp-locks, a tuft of eagle's feathers, moccasins, and buffalo- hide cloaks, embroidered with representations of war and the chase. This was the accoutrement of the stranger who now approached me, and whose copper-coloured complexion indicated that he was a member of the Red Indian, or, as the late Mr. Morgan called ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang

... on the very brink, and she must have it for Maria. To reach it without a wetting required some skill and time. She tried this way—she tried that; but the flower was just out of reach. She went to the next alder-bush for a bough, which answered her purpose; and she had drawn the tuft of flags towards her, and laid hold of the iris, when Sydney shouted her name from a distance, and summoned her ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... La Boisselle was a wonderful sight. One morning I was wandering about the old battlefield, and I came across a great wilderness of white chalk—not a tuft of grass, not a flower, nothing but blazing chalk; apparently a hill of chalk dotted thickly all over with bits of shrapnel. I walked up it, and suddenly found myself on the lip of the crater. I felt myself in another world. This enormous hole, 320 yards round ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen

... closed his eyes and lost Canton and all else in delicate thoughts of Mian, to look up. That which met his attention on doing so filled him with an intelligent wonder, for the person before him held in his hand what had the appearance of a tuft of bright yellow hair, which shone in the light of the sun with a most engaging splendour, but which he nevertheless regarded with a most undignified expression of ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... and friend of poets, if thy glass Detects no flower in winter's tuft of grass, Let this slight token of the debt I owe Outlive for thee December's frozen day, And, like the arbutus budding under snow, Take bloom and fragrance from some morn of May When he who gives it shall have gone the way Where faith shall see and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... oddity, that above the nape of his neck was a whitish tuft which, though he took great pains to conceal it, continually obtruded through the darker hair like the cottontail on the ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... [63] A tuft of hair worn on a man's forehead, or a projecting conspicuous part of the women's caps worn by the fashionables ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... out for numberless centuries from those stony-hearted streets, to which he had latterly grown accustomed; there is no trace of her, except for what blades of grass spring out of the pavements of the less trodden piazzas, or what weeds cluster and tuft themselves on the cornices of ruins. Therefore his joy was like that of a child that had gone astray from home, and finds him suddenly in his ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... of the Shape of a Heart, are longish, pointed, and placed alternately; its Blossoms grow in Bunches at the end of the Boughs, they are white, mix'd with Carnation, like the Flowers of the wild Rose-Tree. In the middle, there is a Tuft of yellow Stamina with red Points; when these Blossoms fall off, there appears tawny Buds, beset with fine Prickles: These Buds grow to be Shells, which, when ripe, open on the upper side, and discover within, two Rows of Pippins, almost like little ...
— The Natural History of Chocolate • D. de Quelus

... been discouraged, but were still growing. I recalled it because I had wondered why one knocks off the tops of thistles; and then I had thought of Tarquin; and then I had recited most of Macaulay's VIRGINIA to myself, for I was young. And then I came to a tattered edge where the very tuft had whitened with the sawdust and brick-dust from the new row of houses; and two or three green stars of dock and thistle grew spasmodically about the ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... officinale, that is, 'druggist's sugar,' because the product of this plant was so rare that it was sold only at the druggists' shops. The plant itself is said to be a native of India, and is, as you see, a tuft of vegetation, from which spring six to twenty tall stalks, with joints varying, both in number and in distance, from each other. The most esteemed variety, the Tahiti cane, is striped with violet. The specimen you are looking at is one ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... had been a husbandman long enough to be swift to notice the garb of all growing, living things, whether they were flowers or dames. Truly the hat was marvellous, of a bright purple satin, and crowned with such a tuft of tall feathers that the wearer's face could scarcely be seen beneath its shade. Dressed all in gaudy style was this fine Madam; and, as she passed Miles, she tilted up her head and drew her skirts disdainfully together, ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... said Louis, stooping as he spoke to gather up, not the fruit, but a dozen fresh partridge eggs from the inner shade of a thick tuft of grass and herbs that grew beside a fallen tree. Catharine's voice and sudden movements had startled the partridge [FN: The Canadian partridge is a species of grouse, larger than the English or French partridge. We refer our young readers to the finely arranged specimens in the ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... situation at a glance. The little stream is gurgling downward in a half choked frozen way. There is a huge sodden hemlock lying across it. One clip of the hatchet shows it will peel. There is plenty of smaller timber standing around; long, slim poles, with a tuft of foliage on top. Five minutes suffice to drop one of these, cut a twelve-foot pole from it, sharpen the pole at each end, jam one end into the ground and the other into the rough back of a scraggy hemlock and there ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... always a tuft-hunter," said Rowdy, who had been at college with the barrister, and who, for his own part, has no more objection to a lord than you or I have; and adding, "Hang him, what business has HE to be giving parties?" allowed Mrs. Rowdy, nevertheless, ...
— A Little Dinner at Timmins's • William Makepeace Thackeray

... till it seemed as if it could never be exhausted. Sophia said it made her head ache to look up so long; and she seemed impatient for the bird to have done. It then struck her that she also might find a nest, like her sisters; and she examined the place whence the lark had sprung. Under a thick tuft of grass, in a little hollow, she found a family of infant larks huddled together, and pointed them out to ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... in his hand, with the arrow, ready to attack in case of need. Their heads were shaved all over except for a large spot on the crown. Here the hair grew very long, and was rolled and gathered into a tuft; and this tuft, which was the object of the greatest care, was covered with a piece of skin. The lobes of their ears were pierced, and through the opening was inserted the bones of fish or small beasts. The women wore their hair in great ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... at once by her actions that she had a fawn near there; and so, while she was leading Landy away from it, we set about hunting it up. In a few minutes, I came across the little slender-legged beauty, snugly curled up under a tuft of grass. As I came upon him, he dashed out of cover with a shrill, plaintive little "baa-baa, baa-baa," and, as fawns always do in such cases, began ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... found a tuft of red beard twisted in the fastening of the bolero. The expression on his face would have defied words. As for Mlle. Fouchette, she was for a moment of the same color of the telltale hair. For some reason she did not wish Jean ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray

... before,—violets, so large and fragrant,—roses, with so rich and delicate a blush,—such superb hyacinths and such aromatic pinks,—and many others, some of which seemed to be of new shapes and colors. Two or three times, moreover, she could not help thinking that a tuft of most splendid flowers had suddenly sprouted out of the earth before her very eyes, as if on purpose to tempt her a few steps farther. Proserpina's apron was soon filled and brimming over with delightful blossoms. She was on the point of turning back in order to rejoin the sea-nymphs, and ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various

... from the rampart walls a glance Of the air his steed assumes; His proud neck swells, his glad hoofs prance, And on his head unceasing dance, In a gorgeous tuft, red plumes! ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... amount to as much as the tuft on Kennedy's mare's tail," she said aloud. "Eat now, I says, or I opens yer ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... had taken five steps, Zoe stopped short and said, "It is Fanny Dover, I declare. She has not seen us yet. She is short-sighted. Come here." And the impetuous maid dragged him off behind a tuft of foliage. ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... say, that, when he was quite a baby, he had a funny little tuft of hair on his head, so he was called Tufty Riquet, for Riquet was the ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg

... alas!" and her breath grew quick and short, "if I had only some one to profit by my last words, telling of my life of folly, I might not have lived wholly in vain." But there was nothing about her which she could discern save a tuft of moss upon the cold, hard rock which must now be ...
— Allegories of Life • Mrs. J. S. Adams

... give those fellows a parting salute," cried Isidore. The order was obeyed, and with such effect that the Indians stopped in their wild onset, and then fell back a little. One alone held his ground. He was their chief, and by the tuft of snowy feathers and ribbons that fluttered above his head he was recognised at once by Isidore and by Boulanger, who stood by his side, all begrimed with dust and smoke, and clutching in his hand the barrel of his broken rifle. It was ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... and to send a spark straight into the thickest bunch of wiry sand grass, where the wind could fan it to a blaze and then seize it and bend the tall flame tongues until they licked around the next tuft of grass, and the next, and the next—until the spark was grown to a long, leaping line of fire, sweeping eastward with the relentless rush of a tidal ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower

... he sat silently on one side throughout the demonstration and consulted the contents of his charm-bag. There were the teeth of crocodiles, pebbles worn round and smooth in the riverbed and a tuft of snowy feathers taken from the shoulders of a luckless egret. Finally he arose and raising his hands ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... Jaintia Hills, the head of the corpse is shaved, but a tuft of hair in the middle of the head is left; this is called (u'niuh Iawbei), the great grandmother's lock. At Nartiang betel-nut, which has been chewed by one of the mourners is put into the mouth of the corpse, also cooked rice. There is a similar ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... sight. But it was his dress rather than his person which attracted attention. He wore the ordinary Andalucian cap—of which such hideous parodies are now making themselves common in England—but was not contented with the usual ornament of the double tuft. The cap was small, and jaunty; trimmed with silk velvet—as is common here with men careful to adorn their persons; but this man's cap was finished off with a jewelled button and golden filigree work. He was dressed in a short jacket with a stand up collar; and that also was ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope

... dreadful. The nightcap came over his forehead, down to his eyebrows, and he said to me, pressing my hand; "At last, Valentine; you are mine; do you love me? oh! tell me, do you love me?" And as his head moved as he uttered these words, the horrible tuft at the end of his nightcap waggled as ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... field mouse, I stood still as it was approaching my position, and when within a foot or two of the spot on which I was standing, so that I could have a full view of the animal, a very small weasel appeared, and quickly disappeared again in a tuft of grass. On searching the spot I discovered a mousehole, in which Mr. Weasel had ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 213, November 26, 1853 • Various

... in, so as to be painful, the nail should always be kept scraped very thin, and as near the flesh as possible. As soon as the corner of the nail can be raised up out of the flesh, it should be kept from again entering, by putting a tuft of fine lint ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... under my feet the whole day, till I had reduced it to dust; this dust I strewed in the aperture of my window, making use of the loosened night-table to stand upon, I tied splinters from my bedstead together, with the ravelled yarn of an old stocking, and to this I affixed a tuft of my hair. I worked a large hole under the middle grating, which could not be seen when standing on the ground, and through this I pushed my dust with the tool I had prepared in the outer window, then, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck

... wiped the mud from it with a tuft of dried grass, and, carrying it in her hand, went forward. She was on the track now, and here and there prints of small feet in the earth guided her. She called "Tommy! Isaphine! Belinda!" but no answer came. They were either hidden cleverly, or else they had wandered ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... fact is to pull out the center leaves of each pineapple that is chosen. As shown in Fig. 16, grasp the pineapple with one hand and then with the other pull out, one at a time, several of the center leaves of the tuft at the top. If the fruit is ripe a sharp jerk will usually remove each leaf readily, but the harder the leaves pull, the greener ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... crimson maples gleamed against the background of dark green pines. In every direction bright-colored leaves, painted with "autumnal hectic," strewed the bier of the declining year. Beulah sat down on a tuft of moss, and gathered clusters of golden-rod and purple and white asters. She loved these wild wood-flowers much more than gaudy exotics or rare hothouse plants. They linked her with the days of her childhood, ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans

... abreast of a garden door under a tuft of chestnuts, it was suddenly drawn back, and he could see inside, upon a garden path, the figure of a butcher's boy with his tray upon his arm. He had hardly recognized the fact before he was some steps beyond upon the other side. But the fellow had had time to observe ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... derived from her imagination, aided by a school geography, the ground was fairly honeycombed with entrances to the abodes of these reptiles, and I fully expected to find them festooning trees, bushes, and fences, lying in wait within every tuft of grass, and in fact making my life ...
— Six Days on the Hurricane Deck of a Mule - An account of a journey made on mule back in Honduras, - C.A. in August, 1891 • Almira Stillwell Cole

... hidden by those who are near. The bees kept very beesy all about us. To see one huge fellow, as big as three ordinary ones with pieces of red and yellow about him, as if he were the beadle of all bee-dom, and overgrown in consequence—to see him, I say, down in a little tuft of white clover, rolling about in it, hardly able to move for fatness, yet bumming away as if his business was to express the delight of the whole creation—was a sight! Then there were the butterflies, so light that they seemed to tumble ...
— The Seaboard Parish Volume 1 • George MacDonald

... venerable air, while the larger vegetation often found on such as were most decayed produced a picturesque effect. Here, for example, is a bear five or six feet long, reposing on top of his lichen-clad pillar, with paws comfortably folded, a tuft of grass growing in each ear and rubus bushes along his back. And yonder is an old chief poised on a taller pillar, apparently gazing out over the landscape in contemplative mood, a tuft of bushes leaning back with a jaunty air from the top of his weatherbeaten hat, and downy ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir

... in the slanting light of a redly setting August sun; the little tuft of green shrubbery that crests its summit was black against the crimson of sea and sky, and its colossal base of grey stone ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... and other animals, and a few white, and occasionally red, feathers; the latter of which appeared to have been dyed in the blood of some animal. This hat was secured to the head by a skewer, which passed through the crown, and penetrated a tuft of hair collected above the vertex. The neck, arms, body above the hips, and the legs below the knee, were encircled by ornamental bands, in the form of bracelets, which were, for the most part, composed of strings of beads, or the vertebrae of small snakes; to the girdle, which thus surrounded ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... film as I have mentioned, and I feared the glass was ruined. When taken apart it was found that the tin-foil had oxidised totally and had distributed itself all over the inner surfaces. I feared the result, but was delighted to find that nitric acid and a tuft of absorbent cotton cut all the deposit off, leaving no stains after having passed through a subsequent washing with ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... never quits the nest, but the ants bring it in food and supply it by putting the nourishment actually into its mouth. But the beetle, in return, seems to secrete a sweet liquid (or it may even be a stimulant like beer, or a narcotic like tobacco) in a tuft of hairs near the bottom of the hard wing-cases, and the ants often lick this tuft with every appearance of satisfaction and enjoyment. In this case, and in many others, there can be no doubt that the insects are kept for the sake ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... morning had subsided into a sunshiny afternoon, nearly two years ago, when a young man, slender, above the middle height, with a physiognomy thoughtful yet delicate, his brown hair worn long, slight whiskers, on his chin a tuft, knocked at the door of a house in Carrington Street, May Fair. His mien and his costume denoted a character of the class of artists. He wore a pair of green trousers, braided with a black stripe down their sides, puckered towards the ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... came, as come it must, and not long after the war-dance that has been described. The season was advanced and nesting time already begun. In fact, it was ended in several families; mocking-birds were about ready to fly, young chipping sparrows peeped from every tuft of grass, baby bluebirds were trying their wings at their doors, the yellow-throated warbler was stuffing her youngsters on the next tree, and the late kingbirds had nearly finished their nests. Whether a pitched battle at last settled the dispute, ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... seemed to have passed over him, and he saw the world with a new eye. Each sound and scent plucked at him in passing: the roadside started into detail like the foreground of some minute Dutch painter; every pendent mass of fern, dark dripping rock, late tuft of harebell called out to him: "Look well, for this is your last sight of us!" His first sight too, it seemed: since he had lived through twelve Italian summers without sense of the sun-steeped quality of atmosphere that, even in shade, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... Man said to the fox: "My little brother, I can think of only one way to get these bulls. This is my plan, if you agree to it. I will pluck all the fur off you except one tuft on the end of your tail. Then you go over the hill and walk up and down in sight of the bulls, and you will seem so funny to them that they will laugh themselves ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell

... true poems, The words of true poems do not merely please, The true poets are not followers of beauty, but the august masters of beauty; The greatness of sons is the exuding of the greatness of mothers and fathers, The words of true poems are the tuft ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs

... Fongue Jean Le Ford Hezekiah Legrange Thomas Legrange Joseph Legro Samuel Legro George Lehman Gerge Lehman George Leish Jacob Lelande Jeremiah Leman John Lemee Rothe Lemee Abraham Lemon Peter Lernonas Pierre Lemons John Lemont Powell Lemosk John Lemot James Lenard Joseph Lenard John Lenham Tuft Lenock Joseph Lenoze John Leonard Simon Leonard Louis Le Pach Joshua Le Poore Pierre Le Port Francis Lepord Pierre Lepord Pierre Lerandier Jean Le Rean Joseph Peccanti Lescimia John Lessington John Lessell Christian Lester Henry Lester Lion Lesteren Ezekiel Letts (2) James Leuard Anthony ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... blow on the skull, and Helge had ceased to live. "What is death to one is food to another," is a saying that can scarcely find a better application than these dog meals. Helge was portioned out on the spot, and within a couple of hours there was nothing left of him but his teeth and the tuft at the end of his tail. This was the second of our eighteen dogs that we had lost. The Major, one of Wisting's fine dogs, left us in 88)deg) 25' S., and never returned. He was fearfully worn out, and must have gone away to die. We now had sixteen dogs left, and ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... unfrequently reaches a hundred, the tall trunk slightly swelling near the middle and tapering at either extremity. The upper portion is of a fresh and shining green, contrasting with the lower section, which is of a light slate color. It is crowned by a tuft of branches and leaves at its apex, like a bunch of ostrich feathers drooping in all directions. It seems as though the palm could not be out of place in any spot. It imparts great beauty to the scenery in ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... the highest part among the ornaments of a coat of arms. It is called crest from the Latin word crista, which signifies comb or tuft. ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous

... twentieth of September, two alcatrazes came near the ship about two hours before noon, and soon afterwards a third. On this day likewise they took a bird resembling a heron, of a black colour, with a white tuft on its head, and having webbed feet like a duck. Abundance of weeds were seen floating in the sea, and one small fish was taken. About evening three land birds settled on the rigging of the ship and began to sing. These flew away at day-break, which was considered a ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... plain are other men and horses, to the number of near two hundred. Their half-naked bodies of bronze colour, fantastically marked with devices in chalk-white, charcoal-black, and vermillion red—their buckskin breech-clouts and leggings, with plumes sticking tuft-like above their crowns—all these insignia show ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... since they have been more carefully bred. They vary in form, color, and disposition, and also in the quality of their hair. The standard calls for a small head, with not too long a nose, large eyes that should harmonize in color with the fur, small, pointed ears with a tuft of hair at the apex, and a very full, fluffy mane around the neck. This mane is known as the "lord mayor's chain." The body is longer than that of the ordinary cat in proportion to its size, and is extremely graceful, and covered with long, silky hair, which is crinkly like that of the Angora ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... rather ragged and untidy. One great feature of the vegetation was what are called the 'black-boys' (Xanthorrhea), somewhat resembling tree-ferns, with a huge black pineapple stem, at the top of which grows a bushy tuft of grass-like foliage. ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... relaxes its hold, till finally it lets go completely, and down comes the painted sphere with a mellow thump to the earth, towards which it has been nodding so long. It bounds away to seek its bed, to hide under a leaf, or in a tuft of grass. It will now take time to meditate and ripen! What delicious thoughts it has there nestled with its fellows under the fence, turning acid into sugar, ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... caused the black doublet and breeches to be slashed with red, and the doublet to be cut more to a peak, a la Henri III. The conventional black velvet cap he had replaced by a conical hat with a turned-up brim, and a tuft of feathers on the left, and he had ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... off from the float, and put it upon the paper. He then sprinkled a little sand over it, from the sand-box, and, upon taking it up, they all saw that there was a little tuft of black sand both upon the point and at the eye, showing that it ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott

... of them. Our first writers, it seems, were Lord Chesterfield, Lord Bath, Mr. W. Whithed, Sir Charles Williams, Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Coventry. Of these seven personages, Whithed was the lowest in station, but was the most accomplished tuft-hunter of his time. Coventry was of a noble family. The other five had among them two seats in the House of Lords, two seats in the House of Commons, three seats in the Privy Council, a baronetcy, a blue riband, a red riband, about a hundred thousand pounds a year, and not ten pages that are worth ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... pride in it; the women encourage theirs to a considerable length, and I have known many instances of its reaching the ground. The men are beardless and have chins so remarkably smooth that, were it not for the priests displaying a little tuft, we should be apt to conclude that nature had refused them this token of manhood. It is the same in respect to other parts of the body with both sexes; and this particular attention to their persons they esteem a point of delicacy, and the contrary an unpardonable neglect. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... nigger, walk! De road am dusty, de road am tough, Dust in de eye, dust in de tuft; Dust in de mouth, yous can't talk— Walk, you niggers, don't ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... paralysed victim, should some glimmer of consciousness still linger in its puny brain! What a terrible nightmare for the little field-cricket, suddenly plunged into the den of the Sphex, so far from the sunlit tuft of ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... that when he was born he had a little tuft of hair upon his head. For this reason he was called Ricky of the Tuft, Ricky ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault

... long in reefing the mainsail and sweating it up—probably not more than fifteen minutes; but the felucca had in the meantime so shortened the distance between us that I now saw the tuft of hair on the heads of the crew,—by which, it is said, Mohammed will pull the villains up into heaven,—and they were coming on like the wind. From what I could clearly make out now, I felt them to be the sons of generations of pirates, and I saw by their movements that they were now preparing ...
— Sailing Alone Around The World • Joshua Slocum

... Tientsin.—September 10th.—Two P.M.—This morning we started at about five, and reached this encampment soon after seven. A very nice ride, cool, and through a succession of crops of millet; a stiff, reedy stem, some twelve or fourteen feet high, with a tuft on the top, is the physiognomy of the millet stalk. It would puzzle the Tartar cavalry to charge us through this crop. As it is, we have seen no enemy; and Mr. Parkes has induced the inhabitants to sell us a good many sheep and oxen. Our tents were not pitched ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin

... curb, wore a heavy mob-cap. The vane on the barn was delicately sifted over, and the top of every picket in the high front-yard fence had a fluffy peak. But it was chiefly in the woods that the rapture and flavor of the time ran riot in making beauty. There every fir branch swayed under a tuft of white, and the brown refuse of the year was ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... I rode, and dismounting, after being duly challenged by the sentinel at the causeway-head, walked down the long and lonely path. The tide was well up, though still on the flood, as I desired; and each visible tuft of marsh-grass might, but for its motionlessness, have been a prowling boat. Dark as the night had appeared, the water was pale, smooth, and phosphorescent, and I remember that the phrase "wan water," so familiar in the Scottish ballads, struck me just then as peculiarly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... up to a little man, with a high tuft of hair on his forehead and moustaches, in a cinnamon-coloured frock-coat and striped cravat. His yellow, mobile features were certainly full of cleverness and sarcasm. His lips were perpetually curved in a flitting ironical smile; little black eyes, screwed up with an impudent ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... the bottom of a precipice, what is the use of finding out how he has got there,—whether by stumbling over a stone, or slipping on a tuft of grass! And yet it is always our foremost thought. It was with an eager obstinacy that Mme. Favoral and her children ascended the course of their existence, seeking in the past the incidents and the merest words which might throw some light upon their disaster; for it was quite manifest ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... agreed on combined a number of distinctive touches. The head-dress was a red Scotch cap—tam-o'-shanter I believe is its common appellation—to be ornamented with a feather or tuft of simple field flowers. There was to be a loose white blouse with a soft rolling collar such as sailors wear, marked on the sleeve with any desirable insignia, and joined or attached to the nether ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... she knew every foot of the mountains from long association. But Beppi was not to be seen, nor was Garibaldi. Lucia stopped, discouraged. Fear and helplessness were getting the better of her, and she would most likely have given way to the tears she so despised had her eye not caught sight of a tuft of fur on the ground. She seized upon it eagerly. It was without doubt part of ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent

... Snick'er, to laugh in a half-suppressed manner. 4. Crest, a tuft growing on an animal's head. 5. Di-vine'ly, in a supreme degree. 6. Mor'al, the practical lesson which anything is fitted ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... of the conventional only serves to accent the little self-satisfied excursions he makes into barbarism. The shirt is always worn outside, the ear ornaments are as varied as ever, the head is shaved in strange patterns, a tiny tight tuft on the crown is useful as fastening for feathers or little streamers or anything else that will wave or glitter. One of these individuals wore a red label he had, with patience and difficulty, removed from one of our trunks. He had pasted it on his forehead; and it read "Baggage ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... hopes ran in one channel. We looked for the coming of a ship to rescue us from our dreary position; and every morning and evening, at least, and generally many times a day, some one of us climbed into the tuft of an inclining palm, to take a careful survey of that portion of the ocean, which could be seen from our side of the island. The thought of acting in any respect as though the lonely spot where we now found ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... myna commonly seen in Himalayan hill stations is the jungle myna (AEthiopsar fuscus). This is so like the species just described, that nine out of ten people fail to differentiate between the two birds. Close inspection shows that this species has a little tuft of feathers on the forehead, which the common myna lacks. On the other hand, the yellow patch of skin round the eyes is ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar

... gestures awkward. Light, curly hair covered his head; his nose was long and inquisitive; his eyes, big, blue and good-humored; his mouth, incredibly wide, with shrewd, mobile lips, which habitually smiled. A tuft of yellow beard on the end of his sharp chin, gave his face a comical expression resembling that which caricature bestows on Uncle Sam. His voice was pitched in a high key, and was modified by that nasal twang supposed to indicate Yankee ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... the open. We rode to cut him off. On sighting us, he attempted to rise; but his pounds were against him, and when we crossed his course he was so winded that our horses ran all around him. After we had both shot a few times, missing him, he squatted in some tall grass and stuck his head under a tuft. Dismounting, Dan sprang on to him like a fox, and he was ours. We wrung his neck, and agreed to report that we had shot him through the head, thus concealing, in the absence of bullet wounds, our ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams

... or so ago. Gilbert White refers to two distinct breeds—"To the west of the Adur ... all had horns, smooth white faces and white legs, but east of that river all flocks were poll sheep (hornless) ... black faces with a white tuft of wool." Since that day, however, east has been west and west east and the ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... the Fox yonder shall be the umpire of the race." The Hare agreed, and away they both started together. But the Hare, by reason of her exceeding swiftness, outran the Tortoise to such a degree that she made a jest of the matter, and, finding herself a little tired, squatted in a tuft of fern that grew by the way, and took a nap, thinking that, if the Tortoise went by, she could at any time catch him up with all the ease imaginable. In the meanwhile the Tortoise came jogging on, with a slow but continued motion; and the Hare, out of a too great security and confidence of victory, ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various

... from twenty to forty years of age. The boys were unable to say, though they decided that he was quite young. He was considerably shorter in stature than the Indians they had seen, and Tad wondered if he were not an Eskimo. The guide's head was shaven except for a tuft of black coarse hair on the top, standing straight up, while a yellow bar of paint had been drawn perpendicularly on each cheek. He wore a shirt that had once been white, a pair of trousers, one leg of which extended some six inches below the knee, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin

... and the break-down in the Crimea that winter much embittered his radicalism. "I am hourly strengthened in my old belief," he wrote (3rd of February 1855) "that our political aristocracy and our tuft-hunting are the death of England. In all this business I don't see a gleam of hope. As to the popular spirit, it has come to be so entirely separated from the Parliament and Government, and so ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... animals. Sometimes I thought I heard the roaring of a bull at a distance, when I found it to proceed from the black ox-bird; and at others the grunting of a hog sounded close to us; and a beautiful bird called the Tunqui, like a cock with a tuft of red feathers, and an orange bill, started up and astonished us with the contrast between his gruff note and gay plumage. In the evenings, groups of the pheasant-like Hachahuallpa summoned their ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... General Digby went off into such a convulsion of laughter, coughing, and panting for breath, that he presented a truly alarming spectacle. The protuberant eyes protruded farther and farther, the tuft of grey hair seemed to rear itself more stiffly erect, his cheeks changed from red to purple. It was not a time for ceremony, and Jill promptly pounded him on the back until he recovered himself sufficiently to shake her off, declaring forcibly that the cure was ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey

... northward. What appears to be a crest is seen on the head of the bird in Pl. 19, fig. 4. The black coloring and the shape of the bill otherwise suggest the black vulture, though perhaps the crest would indicate the harpy eagle. Similarly, Pl. 19, fig. 14, is provided with a sort of tuft or crest, but its general appearance is suggestive of the vulture. A pottery whistle (text fig. 2) from the Uloa Valley evidently represents a black vulture. The head of the bird shows the characteristic wrinkled appearance seen in the drawings, with the ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen

... lake to throw themselves upon him, seize the Golden Bird, and fling him in the water. Then they continued their journey, taking with them the Porcelain Maiden, in the firm belief that their brother was drowned. But, happily, he had snatched in falling at a tuft of rushes and called loudly for help. The little hare came running to him, and said 'Take hold of my leg and pull yourself out of ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... craggy peaks In wilding blossoms drest; With ivy o'er their jutting nooks Ye screen the ouzel's nest; From precipice, abrupt and bold, Your tendrils flaunt in air, With craw-flowers dangling living gold Ye tuft the steep ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... his sons working in their clearings, upon the woman and her children in the hut: a whoop, a popping of musket shots and whistling of arrows, then the vicious swish and crash of the murderous tomahawk, followed by the dexterous twist of the scalping-knife, and the snatching of the tuft of hair from the bleeding skull. That is all—but, no: there still remains a baby or two who must be caught up by the leg, and have its brains dashed out on the door-jamb; and if any able-bodied persons survive, they are to be loaded with their own household goods, and driven hundreds of miles ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... of burrows. The game, the food of the coming larva, is first caught and paralysed; the home is excavated afterwards. As the heavy prey would be a grave encumbrance to the Wasp in search of a convenient site, the Spider is placed high up, on a tuft of grass or brushwood, out of the reach of marauders, especially Ants, who might damage the precious morsel in the lawful owner's absence. After fixing her booty on the verdant pinnacle, the Pompilus casts around for a favourable spot and digs her burrow. During the process of excavation, she ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson

... island. Near to these is a miniature, an islet covered with trees, on which stands a small ruin that looks like the remains of a religious house; it is overgrown with ivy, and were it not that the arch of a window or gateway may be distinctly seen, it would be difficult to believe that it was not a tuft of trees growing in the shape of a ruin, rather than a ruin overshadowed by trees. When we had walked a little further we saw below us, on the nearest large island, where some of the wood had been cut down, a hut, which we conjectured to be a bark hut. It appeared to be on the shore of ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth

... cathedrals, and the public edifices, ancient in date and quaint in architecture, of a continental city; where new life had awaited her, still in connexion with the misshapen scholar: a new life, but feeding itself on time-worn materials, like a tuft of green moss on a crumbling wall. Lastly, in lieu of these shifting scenes, came back the rude market-place of the Puritan, settlement, with all the townspeople assembled, and levelling their stern regards at Hester Prynne—yes, at herself—who stood on the scaffold of the pillory, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Bay there is a delightful drive, beneath a splendid avenue of imperial palms, extending to the gates of the Botanical Gardens. Each specimen rises straight up like the column of an Egyptian temple, and is crowned with a feathery tuft of large shiny dark green leaves, some thirty feet in length. The clumps of bamboos, too, were very fine, and nearly all the trees seemed to be full of curious orchids and parasites of ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... dark cloth, always carrying, when walking, a long staff in his hand. His four sons were favourable specimens of their race, especially the eldest, named Chunderah. He was somewhat of a dandy, being more neat about his lion-skin covers and ornaments than his brothers. From the tuft of wool left unshaven on the crown of his head to his waist he was bare, except when his arms and neck were decorated with charmed horns, strips of otter-skin, shells, and bands of wool. He was fond of introducing Friz, Speke's head man, into the palace, that he might amuse his sisters with ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... would to heaven I had the space to tell you all here, for he knows the legends of the mountain), while it is public that barbers are garrulous and servile, that millers are cheats (we say in Sussex that every honest miller has a large tuft of hair on the palm of his hand), yet—with every trade in the world having some bad quality attached to it—bakers alone are exempt, and every one takes it for granted that they are sterling: indeed, there are some societies in which, no matter how gloomy and churlish the conversation ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... crescent on his throat. The meadow-lark is about the size of a quail. He stands erect when he sings, and he has a rather long beak. The nest can be found, if you look for it, but is generally out of sight under a loosened clod of earth or tuft of grass. ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... the River Corgo Fundo (elev. 1,250 ft.), along the banks of which the laminae of red-baked rock could be observed with thin white layers between. Above was a lovely green pasture with a tuft of deep green trees, which looked exactly like a bit of a well-kept English park. We mounted up again to 1,430 ft., then went down another descent into a large plain with campos, upon which grew ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... forsook him; and then he played with his panther. He learned to know the different inflections of her voice and the meanings of her expressive glance; he studied the variegation of the spots which shaded the dead gold of her robe. Mignonne no longer growled when he caught the tuft of her dangerous tail and counted the black and white rings which glittered in the sunlight like a cluster of precious stones. He delighted in the soft lines of her lithe body, the whiteness of her belly, the grace of her charming head: but above all he loved to watch her as she gamboled at play. ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... drawn of the slights and indignities to which boys, whose means are inferior to those of their schoolfellows, are subject. I am happy to believe that this is a libel. There are, it is true, toadies and tuft hunters among boys as among men. That odious creature, the parasite of the Greek and Latin plays, exists still, but I do not believe that a boy is one whit the less liked, or is ever taunted with his poverty, provided he is a good fellow. Most of the miseries endured by ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... bluish-white, glittering diamond sparks. Countless insects (butterflies and bees mostly) lay in masses dead on the snow; they had ventured too high, or the wind had borne them thither, but to breathe their last in these cold regions. A threatening cloud hung over the Wetterhorn, like a fine, black tuft of wool. It lowered itself slowly, heavily, with that which lay concealed within it, and this was the "Foehn,"[A] powerful in its strength when it broke loose. The impression of the entire journey, the night quarters above and then the road ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... account of this person, I expected to have seen some religious adoration paid to him. But, excepting some young plantain trees that lay before him, and upon the awning under which he sat, I could observe nothing by which he might be distinguished from their other chiefs. Omai presented to him a tuft of red feathers, tied to the end of a small stick; but, after a little conversation on indifferent matters with this Bolabola man, his attention was drawn to an old woman, the sister of his mother. She was already at his feet, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... went back, in spite of their protest, and peeped into the nest, and found four gleaming white eggs studding the bottom like pearls. Alas! when I visited the place two weeks later, the little domicile had been raided, the half-decayed walls having been broken down. A tuft of gray hair hanging to a splinter proved the invader to have been a predatory animal of some kind, probably a cat. The birds were nowhere to be seen—unless a pair chirping in the woods on the other side of the valley were the same couple, ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... Kate—who during the voyage would at one time be in the highest spirits, and the next pensive, as if occupied by a world of thought—"I declare if that one isn't the very image of Mr Trotter, our curate at Allington! He has the same little tuft of hair on top on his head; and, besides, he has the identical same way of popping it on one side when he used to speak, and staring at you with his little round eyes. Is he not like Mr Trotter, father?" and she pointed out one especially ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... compelled to make on foot, owing to an accident that caused us serious trouble all through the remainder of our Chinese journey. In a rapid descent by a narrow pathway, the pedal of one of the machines struck upon a protuberance, concealed by a tuft of grass, snapping off the axle, and scattering the ball-bearings over the ground. For some miles we pushed along on the bare axle inverted in the pedal-crank. But the wrenching the machine thus received soon began to tell. With a sudden jolt on a ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... they stood Jacky stopped and thrusting his hand into a tuft of long grass pulled out a short blue flower with a very thick stem. "Saw him spark from the top of the tree," said Jacky with a grin. "This fellow stand with him head in the air but him foot in the water. Suppose no water he die a good deal quick." Then taking George's hand he made ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... it was always on his head; and he had two of them—nightcaps, of course. The old fellow was a subject for a painter. He was as thin as a lath, had wrinkles clustering round his eyes and mouth, and long bony fingers, and bushy grey eyebrows: over the left eye hung quite a tuft of hair, and that did not look very handsome, though it made him very noticeable. People knew that he came from Bremen; but that was not his native place, though his master lived there. His own native place was ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen



Words linked to "Tuft" :   staghead, wisp, witch broom, bunch, crest, coma, witches' broom



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com