tussock
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Uncertain. Likely from or related to tusk + -ock (diminutive suffix). Compare Middle High German zūsach (“thicket”), a derivative of Middle High German zūse (“lock of hair”). Compare also Scottish Gaelic dosag (“little tuft”).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (UK, General American) IPA(key): /ˈtʌs.ək/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -ʌsək
Noun
[edit]tussock (plural tussocks)
- A tuft or clump of green grass or similar verdure, forming a small hillock.
- 1894 May, Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published June 1894, →OCLC:
- An Indian grazing ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear.
- 1895, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters: […], London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:
- Next morning I was off to Lochtully, which, as you know, is in the north of Perthshire. It stands three miles from the station, a great gray pinnacled house, with two towers cocking out above the fir woods, like a hare’s ears from a tussock of grass.
Derived terms
[edit]Derived terms
- blue tussock (Poa poiformis)
- ficus tussock moth
- hard tussock (Festuca novaezelandiae)
- nassella tussock (Nassella tichotoma)
- plumed tussock (Cortaderia richardii, Arundo richardii)
- red tussock (Chionochloa rubra)
- serrated tussock (Nassella trichotoma)
- sweet tussock (Poa bulbosa)
- tussock bellflower (Campanula carpatica)
- tussock caterpillar (Lymantriinae)
- tussocked
- tussocker
- tussock grass, tussockgrass
- tussock moth (Lymantriinae)
- tussock sedge (Carex stricta)
- tussocky
- yellow tussock (Euproctis lutea)
Translations
[edit]tuft or clump of grass or verdure
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