tufty
English
Etymology
Adjective
tufty (comparative tuftier, superlative tuftiest)
- Resembling or having the form of a tuft; growing in tufts.
- 1727, James Thomson, Summer,[1]
- Witness, thou best Anana, thou the pride
- Of vegetable life, beyond whate’er
- The poets imaged in the golden age:
- Quick let me strip thee of thy tufty coat,
- Spread thy ambrosial stores, and feast with Jove!
- 1920, Katherine Mansfield, “Promises” in Bliss and Other Stories,[2]
- There was a bed of nothing but mignonette and another of nothing but pansies—borders of double and single daisies and all kinds of little tufty plants she had never seen before.
- 1933, Emma Orczy, The Way of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Chapter 34,[3]
- Here he stood for a moment looking up and down the narrow road and the heavy snowflakes covered his shoulders and his tufty, ill-kempt hair.
- 1990, John Updike, Rabbit at Rest, Random House, 2010, I, p. 14,[4]
- In recent years Nelson has grown a mustache, a tufty brown smudge not much wider than his nose.
- 1727, James Thomson, Summer,[1]
- (obsolete) Of a cow: seeking a bull to mate with.
Noun
tufty (plural tufties)
- (UK, informal) The tufted duck.
- 2005, Simon Barnes, A Bad Birdwatcher's Companion
- Buoyant. That's a tufty. Well, tufted duck, to be formal, but the name always sounds more like tufty duck, and there is something inspiringly matey about a tufty: we are on nickname terms with the bird at first glance.
- 2005, Simon Barnes, A Bad Birdwatcher's Companion