tassel

English

Ornamental tassels (1)

Alternative forms

• tossel (archaic)

Etymology

From Old French tassel, from Latin taxillus (“small cube”), from tālus (“ankle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtæsəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æsəl

Noun

tassel (plural tassels)

1. A ball-shaped bunch of plaited or otherwise entangled threads from which at one end protrudes a cord on which the tassel is hung, and which may have loose, dangling threads at the other end. Tassels are normally decorative elements, and as such one often finds them attached, usually along the bottom hem, to garments, curtains or other hangings.
2. (botany) The panicle on a male plant of maize, which consists of loose threads with anthers on them.
3. The loose hairs at the end of a braid.
4. A narrow silk ribbon, or similar, sewed to a book to be put between the pages.
5. (architecture) A piece of board that is laid upon a wall as a sort of plate, to give a level surface to the ends of floor timbers.
6. A kind of bur used in dressing cloth; a teasel.
7. A thin plate of gold on the back of a bishop's gloves.

Related terms

• sword knot

Translations

ball-shaped bunch of plaited or otherwise entangled threads

• Chinese: 流苏 (liúsū)
• Czech: střapec m
• Danish: kvast
• Dutch: kwast (nl) m
• Esperanto: kvasto
• Finnish: tupsu (fi)
• Galician: teixelo m, borla f
• German: Quaste (de) f
• Greek:

  Ancient Greek: θύσανον n (thúsanon)

• Irish: aigilín m
• Italian: nappa (it)
• Macedonian: висулка f (vísulka), китка f (kítka)

• Norwegian: dusk (no) m
• Persian: منگوله‎ (fa) (mangule)
• Polish: frędzel (pl) m, kutas (pl) m (archaic)
• Portuguese: borla (pt) f
• Russian: ки́сточка (ru) f (kístočka)
• Scottish Gaelic: cluigean m
• Serbo-Croatian: kićanka (sh), kita (sh), rojta (sh)
• Spanish: borla (es) f
• Swedish: tofs (sv) c
• Tagalog: lambo (tl)
• Turkish: makrama (tr), püskül (tr)
• Yup'ik: kistaq

male inflorescence of maize

• French: panicule (fr) m

• Galician: curuto m

loose hairs at the end of a braid

• Dutch: franje (nl) n

Verb

tassel (third-person singular simple present tassels, present participle tasselling or tasseling, simple past and past participle tasselled or tasseled)

1. To adorn with tassels.
   • 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, Act V, Scene V, verses 37-39

     […] gauzes of silver mist;

     Loop’d up with cords of twisted wreathed light,

     And tassell’d round with weeping meteors!

2. (botany) To put forth a tassel or flower.

   Maize is a crop that tassels.

Further reading

• tassel on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Slates, astels, leasts, salets, slates, stales, steals, stelas, teslas

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Old French

Etymology

From Late Latin taxellus, secondary form of taxillus, diminutive of Latin talus.

Noun

tassel m (oblique plural tasseaus or tasseax or tassiaus or tassiax or tassels, nominative singular tasseaus or tasseax or tassiaus or tassiax or tassels, nominative plural tassel)

1. tassel (adornment for a garment)
   • circa 1150, Thomas d'Angleterre, Le Roman de Tristan (in Old French), page 98 (of the Champion Classiques edition, →ISBN, line 909:

     si em fera urle e tassels

     he will add a border and tassels