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Tuft   Listen
verb
Tuft  v. t.  (past & past part. tufted; pres. part. tufting)  
1.
To separate into tufts.
2.
To adorn with tufts or with a tuft.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tuft" Quotes from Famous Books



... head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... and fields. The manner in which they eat their roots of the plantain in my grass-walks is very curious: with their upper mandible, which is much longer than their lower, they bore under the plant, and so eat the root off upwards, leaving the tuft of leaves untouched. In this respect they are serviceable, as they destroy a very troublesome weed; but they deface the waffles in some measure by digging little round holes. It appears, by the dung that they drop upon the turf, that beetles ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White

... and the ancient butler entered. His glance roved until it caught the little tuft of iron-gray hair that protruded above the rim of the chair by the fire. Noiselessly ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath

... a gentleman on a black horse, with a pale face and a tuft to his chin, came riding up to the carriage; and I knew by a little start that Lady Fanny gave, and by her instantly looking round the other way, that Somebody was come ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray

... off his mustaches and the tuft on his chin, and the whole look of him was changed. A year had gone for every stroke of the razor; he seemed such a boy, so particularly guileless! He had stained his face so well that it looked for all the world as though the Southern sun had ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... good number, master, as was to be expected," quoth Roger, cleansing his sword on a tuft of grass, "Sir John of Griswold fell beside ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol

... months' growth, some twenty feet high. Its broad pale sulphur flowers were yet unopened; but, instead, an ivy-leaved Ipomoea had climbed up it, and shrouded it from head to foot with hundreds of white convolvulus-flowers; while underneath it grew a tuft of that delicate silver-backed fern, which is admired so much in hothouses at home. Between it and the palms we saw the still, shining sea; muddy inshore, and a few hundred yards out changing suddenly to bright green; and the point of the cove, which seemed built ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... pronounced Jewish cast of features. With an ulster and a few tall hats on his head he would have made a perfect "old clo'" man. An oldish man this, with grizzled beard brought to a point, and in the end a tuft of a rat's tall was twisted, others similarly adorning the ends of his moustache. His hair was done in a round lump at the back, held in place by a sort of net of string. His hair in front had been either pulled out or shaved off, ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie

... fought at Endondakusuka in December, 1856, between the Usutu party, commanded by Cetewayo, and the adherents of Umbelazi the Handsome, his brother, who was known among the Zulus as "Indhlovu-ene-Sihlonti," or the "Elephant with the tuft of hair," from a little lock of hair which grew ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard

... when the colors are ripe, the whole circular grove, at a little distance, looks like a big handful of flowers set in a cup to be kept fresh—a tuft of goldenrods. Its feeding-streams are exceedingly beautiful, notwithstanding their inconstancy and extreme shallowness. They have no channel whatever, and consequently are left free to spread in thin sheets upon the shining granite and wander ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir

... ex-seminarist; tall, very lean, with a pale, long face, and a tuft of dark hair on his chin. He has long, smooth hair parted in the middle and falling on each side of his face. He is dressed either in a long, dark overcoat or in ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... her daughter, etc. When royal people arrive everybody rises and remains standing while they stand, and if they approach you or look at you, you must perform the lowest of "curtsies." The courtesy made to royalty is very like the one I was taught to make when a little girl at Miss Tuft's school in Plymouth. One sinks down instead of stepping back in dancing-school fashion. After dinner the Duchess was pleased to stand until the gentlemen rejoined us; of course, we must all stand. . . . The next day we dined at the Lord Mayor's to meet the Ministers. This was ...
— Letters from England 1846-1849 • Elizabeth Davis Bancroft (Mrs. George Bancroft)

... a cheap hotel, and took a room, and sat on the edge of the thin little bed and stared at the carpet. It was a dusty red carpet. In front of the bureau many feet had worn a hole, so that the bare boards showed through, with a tuft of ragged red fringe edging them. Eddie Houghton sat and stared at the worn place with a curiously blank look on his face. He sat and stared and saw many things. He saw his mother, for one thing, sitting on the porch with a gingham ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber

... border. I suppose that French and English men have sanctified every part of that narrow ribbon by dying there. But the grass of those old paddocks grows unkempt like a shock head of hair. And it has covered with a kindly mantle most of the terrible relics of the past. A tuft, perhaps thicker than the rest, is all that marks where last year lay a British soldier whose death represented the latest effort of the world to cross ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean

... when he returned, "I've seen your little hunchback. He looks like Riquet-with-the-Tuft. He's not a gentleman, though. If it had not been for his deformity, I should not have made him out from your description; you called him ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... upon the land perish, and do come to nothing." But, like many other popular fictions, this notion was founded on truth, and probably originated in mistaking the fleshy peduncle of the barnacle (Lepas analifera) for the neck of a goose, the shell for its head, and the tentacula for a tuft of feather. There were many versions of this eccentric myth, and according to one modification given by Boece, the oldest Scottish historian, these barnacle-geese are first produced in the form of worms in old trees, and further adds that such a tree was ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... was lying snugly tucked up in bed, with only his nose and one eye visible, with the exception of a tuft of his hair, and Arthur was undressing in the dark, and very ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... on a tuft of soft earth, sat Rusialka. All the little white fairies sat in a circle round her. And Ivy and Christmas Rose took one another by the hand and ...
— The Dumpy Books for Children; - No. 7. A Flower Book • Eden Coybee

... fingers, and aimed at the fetlock of the Horse Garraveen, and flung it, and struck him so that he stumbled and fell. He snorted fiercely as he bent to the grass, but Shibli Bagarag ran to him, and grasped strongly the tuft of hair hanging forward between his ears, and traced between his fine eyes a figure of the crescent with his forenail, and the Horse ceased plunging, and was gentle as a colt by its mother's side, and suffered Shibli Bagarag to bestride him, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... a plain nest in the open field, without so much as a bush or thistle or tuft of grass to protect it or mark its site; you may step upon it, or the cattle may tread it into the ground. But the danger from this source, I presume, the bird considers less than that from another. Skunks and foxes have a very impertinent ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... Pastor Tuft was walking up and down his study, composing his Sunday sermon. He was a handsome man, with a long, fair face, and dreamy eyes; his wife, Josephine, in the days when she thought she was in love with him, used to call him Melanchthon—that was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... in the guard, 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

... would have swept the ground, was doubled up into a sort of club, about a foot long, and tightly bound with worsted ribands of bright and varied colours. The thick and abundant mane had been carefully plaited, with the exception of the foremost tuft, left hanging down between the ears, and from beneath which the wild eyes of the animal glanced shyly at the different objects he passed, pretty much as did those of the rider from under his bushy and projecting eye-brows. The horseman ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... not appear at all in the Dresden and Paris manuscripts. The figures of women mentioned under I with the serpent on their heads, are especially not to be regarded as identical with goddess O, for she never wears the serpent, but a tuft of hair bound high up on her head and running out ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas

... fond, but the greater part shows, by means of circles and circular patches, the eggs in various stages of development, some before and some after laying. Then the men of the totem, placing on their heads a stick with a tuft of feathers to represent the long neck and small head of the bird, stand gazing about aimlessly after the manner of the emu. Here the picture itself is held to be a living emu, perhaps the source or centre from which all emus will originate, and the men, pretending to be emus, will cause numbers ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell

... 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 custom prevalent amongst ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... personages are all observed; she had the admirable good sense not to go beyond her last. She had every opportunity to see the county squire, the baronet puffed up with a sense of his own importance, the rattle and rake of her day, the tuft hunter, the gentleman scholar, and the retired admiral (her two brothers had that rank)—and she wisely decided to exhibit these and other types familiar to her locality and class, instead of drawing on her imagination or trying to extend by ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... of October, invited by the clearness of the air and a fresh breeze which had scarcely strength sufficient to ruffle the water of the harbor, I left my humble apartment and ascended the steep hill of Pera. The view—from the small tuft of graves near the Galata tower, some of which were fresh; of the surrounding villages and the great city itself, where, although devastation had been and still was being carried on with horror, there seemed to reign the most perfect tranquility, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... is even with the ground: others present a stump just high enough to form a seat; and others are perhaps a man's height from the ground; and all are mossy, and with grass and weeds rooted into their chinks, and here and there a tuft of flowers giving its tender little beauty to their decay. The material of the edifice is a soft red stone, and it is now extensively overgrown with a lichen of a very light gray hue, which at a little distance makes the walls ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... Phil had been used to bring home a rare flower or two as a gift for Adele, which Rose had always lovingly arranged in some coquettish fashion, either upon the bosom or in the hair of Adele; but a new and late gift of this kind—a little tuft of the trailing arbutus which he has clambered over miles of woodland to secure—is not worn by Adele, but by Rose, who glances into the astounded face of Phil with a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... densely, and a wilder roar went up from all the students. A tall, slim young fellow, lifted on the shoulders of the mass below, and staying himself with one hand against the tree, rapidly stripped away the remnants of the wreath, and flung them into the crowd under him. A single tuft remained; the crowd was melting away under him in a scramble for the fallen flowers; he made a crooked leap, caught the tuft, and tumbled with ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... as plainly as if he had been there. It was 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 ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz

... it were occasionally as naked as they were born. The very loins of the brave men who fought at Eutaw Springs were galled by their cartouch-boxes, while their shoulders were protected only by a piece of rug or a tuft of moss. In writing to congress, Greene remarked: "The troops have received no pay for two years; they are nearly naked, and often without meat or bread; and the sick and wounded are perishing for want of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... sole and grizzled tuft, That hangs upon his bald and barren crown; And we will sing to see him so rebuff'd, And lend our little mights to pull him down, And make brave sport of his malicious frown, For all his boastful mockery o'er men. For thou wast born, I know, for this renown, By my most magical and ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... TUFT-HUNTER. A cant term, in the English universities, for a hanger-on to noblemen and persons of quality. So called from the tuft in ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... among the heather, her face propped on her hands. Close beneath her eyes was an exquisite tuft of pink bell-heather intergrown with bunchberries. And while a whole vague series of thoughts and memories passed through her mind she was still vividly conscious of the pink bells, the small bright leaves. Sensation in her was exceptionally ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a tuft of moss and tossed it from him, as if therewith dismissing the subject. And Priscilla felt a little hurt, though not for worlds would she have suffered ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... which terminated in the fall of both into the water. Now it became the object of each to drown his antagonist, and the efforts to accomplish this were continued for some time with alternate success;—first one and then the other, being under water. At length, catching hold of the long tuft of hair which had been suffered to grow on the head of the chief, Poe held him under water, until he supposed him dead; but relaxing his hold too soon, the gigantic savage was again on his feet and ready for another grapple. In this both were carried beyond their depth, and had to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... a multitude of deep scarlet-blossomed creepers, so thickly interlaced in their living cordage, that neither sun nor storm could penetrate them; or if a wandering beam found entrance through the thick natural trellice-work, it was only enough to cover some little tuft of violets or strawberries, its own offspring, growing up in its genial warmth with a strength and vigour pre-eminent amidst the pale and sickly brood of the neglected children of the shade. Nothing I had ever imagined of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various

... came the sound of voices singing, and a moment later the wagon jogged heavily round a tuft of stunted cedars which jutted into the long curve of the highway. The wheels crunched a loose stone in the road, and the driver drawled a patient "gee-up" to the horses, as he flicked at a horse-fly with the end of his long rawhide whip. ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow

... light, spongy wood that grows as a single stem or divides into two or more branches. Each branch is crowned by a tuft of long, pointed leaves that grow in concentric circles. As the new leaves unfold on top the old leaves are crowded down and hang in loose folds about the stem like a flounced skirt. When dry the leaves burn readily, and are sometimes ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... 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 beyond, the deep rocky chasms, where ...
— The Ice-Maiden: and Other Tales. • Hans Christian Andersen

... able to put into the field. The infantry consisted of a limited number of archers or slingers. They had usually neither shield nor cuirass, but merely, in the way of protective armour, a padded head-dress, ornamented with a tuft. The bulk of the army carried short lances and broad-bladed choppers, or more generally, short thin-handled swords with flat two-edged blades, very broad at the base and terminating ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... 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. ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... it was decided that the very next time that Mr. Lynx boasted of his tail old King Bear should slip up behind him and step on it as close to his body as he could, and then each of the others should pull a little tuft of hair from it, so that it would be a long time before Mr. Lynx would be able to boast ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess

... has at the end a tuft of thick hair which serves the purpose of keeping off the flies and stinging insects, so plentiful in the hot climate ...
— New National Fourth Reader • Charles J. Barnes and J. Marshall Hawkes

... a tuft of the grass that clung to a crevice where its roots drew hardy sustenance from the crumbling rock; he ventured to thrust his head through this screen, following Domingo's example some hours earlier. Almost directly beneath, his eager glance found ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy

... greeting. His expression was absolutely inspiring—the great blear eyes rolling foolishly in his head; his tongue lolling helplessly from his mouth; his under jaw hanging down; his greasy cap hung on one side on a tuft of dirty hair—all so familiar, so characteristic of something I had seen before! Where could it have been? What potent spell was there about this fellow to attract me? In what was it that I, an embassador ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... Brahmin comes down to a jetty and squats on his heels. His head is shaved, with the exception of a tuft on the crown. He dips his head in the river, scoops some water up and rinses his mouth with it. He calls on Ganges, daughter of Vishnu, and prays her to take away his sins, the impurity of his birth, and to protect him throughout his life. Then, after repeating the twenty-four names of Vishnu, ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin

... it outwardly. Then again many carve a ham by first cutting from 1 to 2, then across the other way from 3 to 4. Remove the skin after the ham is cooked and send to the table with dots of dry pepper or dry mustard on the top, a tuft of fringed paper twisted about the knuckle, and plenty of fresh parsley around the dish. This will always ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette

... 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. ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... who would rather be laughed at and despised than unnoticed. He belonged to an age wherein it was held better to be a gentleman than the object of a cheap and evanescent notoriety—and he was at once the despair and the dread of newspaper interviewers, enterprising publishers, and tuft-hunters. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman

... the characters are those with which the author loves to surround himself. A tuft-hunting county baronet's widow, an inane captain of dragoons, a graceless young baronet, a lady with groundless pretensions to feeble health and poesy, an obsequious nonentity her husband, and a flimsy and artificial young lady, are the personages in whom we are expected to ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray

... northern Acadia, now the companion of Madockawando's daughter, knew her duty to the strangers, and gave them food as rapidly as the hunter could broil it. The hunter was a big-legged, small-headed Abenaqui, with knees over-topping his tuft of hair when he squatted on his heels. He looked like a man whose emaciated trunk and arms had been taken possession of by colossal legs and feet. This singular deformity made him the best hunter in his tribe. He tracked game with a sweep ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... but instead of a sign of assent, the cripple after looking a moment longer at Daisy and the rose-tree, put her hand beyond the balsams and grubbed up a tuft of what the country people call "creepin' Charley;" and then sitting back as before, signified to Daisy by a movement of her hand that the rose-bush might go in that place. That was all Daisy wanted. She fell to work with her trowel, glad enough to be permitted, and dug a hole, ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner

... though scarce willing to reappear when she had made Peregrine wash his face and hands, smooth the hair ruffled in his nap, freshly tying his little cravat and the ribbons on his shoes and at his knees. To make his hair into anything but elf locks, or to obliterate the bristly tuft that made him like Riquet, was impossible, illness had made him additionally lean and sallow, and his keen eyes, under their black contracted brows and dark lashes, showed all the more the curious variation in their tints, and ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... verdancy, the neat houses of the Europeans in the midst of beautiful gardens, the plantations of the most precious spices, the elegant areca and feathered palms, with their slim stems shooting up to a height of a hundred feet, and spreading out into the thick feather-like tuft of fresh green, by which they are distinguished from every other kind of palms, and, lastly, the jungle in the back-ground, compose a most beautiful landscape, and which appears doubly lovely to a person like myself, just escaped from that prison ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer

... green were the shawls of their wear, And each scalp had a single long tuft of hair, All the rest was ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... what remains of some of them is even with the ground; others present a stump just high enough to form a seat; and others are, perhaps, a man's height from the ground,—and all are mossy, and with grass and weeds rooted into their chinks, and here and there a tuft of flowers, giving its tender little beauty to their decay. The material of the edifice is a soft red stone, and it is now extensively overgrown with a lichen of a very light gray line, which, at a little distance, makes the walls look as if they had long ago been whitewashed, and now had partially ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... great animal painter, painted the picture of a bony mule eating a tuft of hay. That picture sold in Petersburg, Russia, for fifteen thousand dollars, while the original mule sold for one dollar and thirty cents. If the painting of Schriner made in the price of that mule, a difference of fourteen thousand, nine hundred, ninety-eight dollars ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... myself on my forethought in preserving it, and took him in to see my mother. She accepted him as what he seemed without the slightest misgiving; but this, though it encouraged me to go on, was not decisive—the spurious poodle would have to encounter the scrutiny of those who knew every tuft on the ...
— Stories By English Authors: London • Various

... the boy had escaped one danger to throw himself into a greater one. From the tuft of oakum which he had flung at Smirre the fire had spread to the bed-hangings. He jumped down and tried to smother it, but it blazed too quickly now. The cabin was soon filled with smoke, and Smirre Fox, who had remained just outside the window, began to grasp the state of affairs within. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... 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 ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... recollect an incident the mention of which will, I fear, send a cold shudder through any worshipper of "Nubian" nocturnes and incomprehensible "arrangements." On one occasion after leaving the banquet of this Guild I beheld Whistler—"Jimmy" of the snowy tuft, the martyred butterfly of the "peacock room"—to whose impressionable soul the very thought of a sugar-stick should be direst agony, actually making his way homewards hugging a great box ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... gave the earth its heavy spading, Mary Jane got the bright colored seed packages and spread them out on the sidewalk. Then as she spelled out the letters, her father told her what each package contained. Lettuce and radishes and nasturtiums and carrots and candy-tuft and— ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson

... and loosely built, with a kind of elastic grace in his disjointedness. When he smiled he was positively handsome; in repose his features were nearly plain, the lips too indecisive, and the eyes lacking in lustre. A sparse tuft of beard at his chin—he was otherwise smoothly shaven—lengthened the face. There was, when he willed it, something very ingratiating in his manner—even Clara admitted that—a courteous and unconventional sort of ease. In all these surface characteristics he was a geographical ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... knows that the ostrich has nothing worthy of the name of wings—merely a small tuft of feathers at each side, with which he cannot make even an attempt to fly; but every one does not know, probably, that with his stout and long legs he can pass over the ground nearly at the ordinary speed of a locomotive engine. I proved this to my own satisfaction ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... in her barouche, and we were glad that she wore one of her handsome black silks instead of her sensible short costume. There was a good deal of jet about the waist, and her bonnet was all made of jet, with a beautiful tuft of pink roses on the front, and she glittered resplendently as she rode past, sitting up very straight, as befitted the dignity of ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... fell to making plans as mating birds build nests. Here a bit of straw and there a tuft of moss; here a feather, there a shred of wool—George would do this and George would do that; here the house would be and thus would they do in the house. ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson

... his index an index of names only, neglecting things. And thus I have had to extemporise an index for myself under such sad heads as those of Brodie's 'passionateness,' his 'covetousness,' his 'time-serving' and 'tuft-hunting,' and suchlike. And I am compelled in truth to say that the entries in my index under 'covetousness' and under 'time-serving' and 'tergiversation' is a long and yet far from exhaustive list. And now, acting, I hope, on the Scriptural ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte

... thing to deal with the rich and great. If you treat them as the rest of the world does, you are a tuft-hunter; if you treat them as the rest of the world pretends to, you are a hypocrite; whereas, if you deal with them truly, it is hard not to seem, even to yourself, a bumptious person. I remember trying to tell myself on the launch-trip that I was not in the least excited; and then, standing ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... 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 garments by means ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... of course," said Carstairs. "He's an American and naturally a tuft-hunter. He's been making a long list of princely acquaintances recently, and he was bound to bring in the son of a field-marshal and make a friend of ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... A tuft o' the broom was knotted wi' tow, An' a rag on't fluttered free, While he shook his heid owre some ferlies there, That I'm bathered if I could see, Though I kent my soul was sib to his In a ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie

... turn 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 ...
— The American Frugal Housewife • Lydia M. Child

... 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 Snob still ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, Sept. 27, 1890 • Various

... 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 ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes

... trees planted in rows, and growing to the height of some forty feet, with straight, branchless trunks, terminated at the top with ten or twelve pinnated leaves, each of which is full five feet long. The fruit grows in clusters immediately below the tuft of leaves. The outer shell is of a bright golden hue, that gradually deepens to crimson as the fruit matures, and when opened shows a brown, astringent nut about the size of a nutmeg. This is the portion chewed with chunam and tobacco all over the East; and its use is ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various

... had a rider, but he was not in the saddle. One foot was caught in the stirrup, and as the horse moved on from tuft to tuft it dragged its dead master along ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman

... a wild dash at his umbrella, which sent it into the stream, far beyond the worthy artist's reach. Then they took to their heels, leaving the good man to contemplate wofully the fate of his umbrella. It had drifted to the middle of the stream, had there been caught by a stone and a tuft of weed, and seemed destined to complete destruction. He tried to arrest its course, but could not reach it, and nearly over-balanced himself in the attempt; then he sat down upon the bank and gave vent to an ejaculation of mild impatience—"Oh, dear, dear, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... it first 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 gleamed like flaming ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... hope 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 ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various

... reed, grew in vast quantities in the stagnant pools formed by the inundations of the Nile. The plant consists of a single stem, rising sometimes to the height of ten cubits; this stem, gradually tapering from the root, supports a spreading tuft at its summit. The substance of the stem is fibrous, and the pith contains a sweet juice. Every part of this plant was put to some use by the Egyptians. The harder and lower part they formed into cups and other utensils; the upper part into staves, or the ribs of boats; the sweet pith was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... middle height, dressed like a captain of fortune in jerkin and long boots of grey leather, and a grey hat with a wine-coloured ostrich plume. His countenance matched his raiment. Keeneyed, broad of brow, with a high-bridged, pendulous nose, red lips, a tuft of beard and a pair of grizzled, bristling moustachios, he ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini

... grasped with arms and legs in climbing; while others were not favorably situated for clear views. After cautiously casting about, I made choice of the tallest of a group of Douglas Spruces that were growing close together like a tuft of grass, no one of which seemed likely to fall unless all the rest fell with it. Though comparatively young, they were about a hundred feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops were rocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accustomed to ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... of great importance which the barbers have to do with is a little tuft of hair that is allowed to grow from the top of the head of a child when all the rest of the scalp is shaven. This is a commendable precaution, and is almost universally taken in the interest of children, ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis

... the shoe, 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 a longer distance than ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... young beauty of the woods. It is some hushed evening at twilight. The new moon is just silvering the tender leaves and creating a faint shadow under the trees. The hawthorn is in bloom—red and white—and not far from the spot, hidden in some fragrant tuft of this, a nightingale is singing, ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen

... remain, the bravest soldiers. Our manliest—our boys—our hardy darlings; no picture gives them. Likely, the typic one of them (standing, no doubt, for hundreds, thousands,) crawls aside to some bush-clump, or ferny tuft, on receiving his death-shot—there sheltering a little while, soaking roots, grass and soil, with red blood—the battle advances, retreats, flits from the scene, sweeps by—and there, haply with pain and suffering (yet less, far less, than is supposed,) the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... see Anna, or Tom Pinfold, or old Yeo, or Pincher, or you, ever any more?" In this moment of the crumbling from under me of all my footholds I would have clung even to that dry tuft, Mrs. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... and in his hair is one white tuft, which he has braided with scarlet thread," interposed Charles, panting ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... where Fafner was lying on the gold, and egged him on to try to get possession thereof. Then Regin made the sword which is hight Gram (wrath), and which was so sharp that when Sigurd held it in the flowing stream it cut asunder a tuft of wool which the current carried down against the sword's edge. In the next place, Sigurd cut with his sword Regin's anvil in twain. Thereupon Sigurd and Regin repaired to Gnita-heath. Here Sigurd dug ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre

... 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 running in ...
— The Nursery, No. 106, October, 1875. Vol. XVIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various

... one sat on a tuft of grass, eating something that looked very nice; but, all of a sudden, she dropped her bowl, and ran away, looking very ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... TUFT HUNTER. A it anniversary parasite, one who courts the acquaintance of nobility, whose caps are adorned with a ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... in the oriole matters 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 ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller

... knoll and tuft of grass on his home links, so the pilot learned his river by heart. Said one of these pilots ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... "are endowed by nature with a wonderful instinct in finding their way. Where a European would be at a loss, they never hesitate for a moment. An insignificant fragment of rock, a pebble, a tuft of grass, a different shade of color in the sand, suffice to guide them with accuracy. During the night they go by the polar star. They never travel more than two miles per hour, and always rest during the noonday heat. You may judge from that how long it takes them to ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... wonderful tricks of light and shadow with the over-arching foliage. The smooth sandy stretches at the outskirts of the gardens shine like water at rest, on which the leaves of an occasional sparse tuft of palms are etched with crystalline ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... out, leaving Colonel Dodd staring after him with his square face twisted into an expression of utter astonishment, his little eyes goggling, his tuft of whisker sticking up ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... castle, by yon tuft of trees, Mann'd with three hundred men, as I have heard; And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley, and Seymour; None else of name ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]

... which time we had pretty well killed our horses, and we were compelled to stop among a tribe of Gorraguas, a very mild, inoffensive people, who supplied us with milk, and treated us very kindly. We had some adventures, nevertheless. One day as we were passing by a tuft of small trees, a rhinoceros charged upon my horse, which very narrowly escaped by wheeling short round and getting behind him; the beast then made off without meddling with us any more. Every day we used to shoot some animal or other, for provision: sometimes ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat

... landscape I turn to the wayside flowers: the agrimony, the little lotus, the candy-tuft—getting rare now that I have left the arid stony region—the blue scabious, and, pleasanter than all, the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... heart, and she felt slightly better. Presently she raised her head, and taking out her handkerchief, prepared to mop her eyes. As she did so she was attracted by something that glittered not far off. She stretched out her hand and drew Miss Tredgold's thimble from where it had rolled under a tuft of dock-leaves. A sudden burst of pleasure escaped her lips as she glanced at the thimble. She had not seen it before. It certainly was the most beautiful thimble she had ever looked at. She put it on the tip of her second finger ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... baker himself came out—a mild-looking, flabby-faced man, with his mouth full, in a very loose suit of pyjama-like garments of a bluish floury colour. I told him my story, and he listened, swallowing his mouthful, then cast his eyes down and rubbed his chin, which had a small tuft of hairs growing on it, and finally said, "I don't know. I must ask my wife. But come in and have a cup of tea—we're just having a cup ourselves, and ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... perhaps two miles from the rising ground on this side of the river to that on the opposite side. The stream winds through the midst of the flat space, without any banks at all; for it fills its bed almost to the brim, and bathes the meadow grass on either side. A tuft of shrubbery, at broken intervals, is scattered along its border; and thus it meanders sluggishly along, without other life than what it gains from gleaming in the sun. Now, into the broad, smooth meadow, as into a lake, capes and headlands put themselves forth, and shores of firm woodland ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... on air. There was not a bit of her body that was not in motion, from the tuft of hair a-top of her head to the soles of her twinkling boots. Now here, now there, head nodding, ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May

... the words of 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 and final ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... that Zack Bunting's eldest son is called Nimrod, familiarized to "Nim,"' said Robert. 'I never saw a more remarkable likeness to a parent, in body and mind, than that youth exhibits; every tuft of ragged beard and every twinkle of the knowing little ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... true. Jan had correctly given many of the characteristic points of that, perhaps, the most singular of all ruminant animals, the wildebeest or gnoo (Catoblepas gnoo). The brushlike tuft over the muzzle, the long hair between the fore-legs, the horns curving down over the face, and then sweeping abruptly upward, the thick curving neck, the rounded, compact, horse-shaped body, the long whitish tail, and full flowing ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... alpinus and C. laburnum. Fuchs ("Sitz. k. Akad. Wien," Bd. 107) and Beijerinck ("K. Akad. Amsterdam," 1900) have spoken on Cytisus Adami, but throw no light on the origin of the hybrid. See letters to Jenner Weir in the present volume.): the raceme grew in centre of tree, and had a most minute tuft of leaves, which presented no unusual appearance: there is now on one raceme a terminal bilateral [i.e., half yellow, half purple] flower, and on other raceme a single terminal pure yellow and one adjoining bilateral flower. If you would like them I will send them; otherwise ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... down the street and around the corner in another few seconds, but Teddy, rushing after him, looked and made sure it really was Jack that the organ player had with him. There was a queer little tuft of white hair on the end of Jack's tail, and this monkey ...
— The Curlytops and Their Pets - or Uncle Toby's Strange Collection • Howard R. Garis

... the pleasant breeze, every slender branch swaying gently in the wind, every young sapling pushing its childish head panting for light through the mass of greenery and quivering with golden sunbeams, every trunk of aged tree gray with moss and lichens, every tuft of flowers, seemed thrilled and vivified by some wonderful knowledge which it held secret, some consciousness of boundless, inexhaustible existence, some music of infinite unexplored thought concealing treasures ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various

... manner, when I tried to raise her from the ground—she looked at me with such a fearful wildness in her eyes—that I felt absolutely terrified at the sight of her. To my relief, the paroxysm left her as suddenly as it had come. She thrust away the tuft of grass into the bosom of her dress, and took my arm and hurried with me out of the churchyard. I asked her why she had gone back—I asked what those words were which she had spoken at the grave. 'A promise to our dead father,' ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... and upwards in the shape of a cupid's wings; his boots creaked; in his left hand he held cinnamon-coloured kid gloves and a forage-cap, and with his right he kept every moment twisting his frizzled tuft of hair up into tiny curls. Complacency and at the same time a certain diffidence were depicted upon his face. His festal appearance and proud gait would have made me burst out laughing, if such a proceeding had been in accordance with ...
— A Hero of Our Time • M. Y. Lermontov

... an oak-bough near the river-bend, were no longer heard when at dusk Brighteye left his burrow and sat, watching and listening, on the little eminence above the river's brink. Even the drone of the drowsy beetle, swinging over the ripples of the shadowed stream or from tuft to tuft of grass beside the woodland path, had ceased. But at times the cheery dipper still sang from the boulder whence the vole had dived to escape the big brown owl; and, when other birds had gone to sleep, the robin on the alder-spray and the wren among the willow-stoles piped their ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees

... at his companion a moment almost sternly, then dropping his eyes to the ground, he began to dash aside the rich blossoms from a tuft of pansies with ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various

... never known a person of any poetry, who came under this tree," said John Effingham, "that did not fall into this very train of thought. I once brought a man celebrated for his genius here, and, after gazing for a minute or two at the high, green tuft that tops the tree, he exclaimed, 'that mass of green waved there in the fierce light when Columbus first ventured into the unknown sea.' It is, indeed, eloquent; for it tells the same glowing tale to all who approach it—a tale fraught with ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper

... 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 ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... of the brook at the bottom and the shiver and sigh of evening winds through the trailing ivy. The white mist was slowly rising, wavering, undulating, and creeping its slow way up the sides of the gorge. Now it hid a tuft of foliage, and now it wreathed itself around a horned clump of aloes, and, streaming far down below it in the dimness, made it seem like the goblin robe of some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... of a rather middling kind—ever won his way more easily or more cheaply into that paradise of mean ambitions, the beau monde. Moore has not escaped the stigma which attaches to almost all men who thus succeeded under the like conditions—that of tuft-hunting and lowering compliances. He would be a bold man who should affirm that there was absolutely no sort of ground for the charge; or that Moore—feted at Holland House, and hovered-round by ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... first across a rough and rocky pasture, and then it suddenly entered a wood where every thing wore an expression of wild and solemn grandeur. The trees were very lofty, and consisted of tall stems, rising to a vast height and surmounted above with a tuft of branches, which together formed a broad canopy over the heads of the travelers, and produced a sort of somber twilight below. Birds sang in plaintive notes on the tops of distant trees, and now and then a squirrel was seen running along the ground, or climbing up ...
— Marco Paul's Voyages and Travels; Vermont • Jacob Abbott

... in their shallow orbits like an adder's, looked about and all around the place, as he stroked the dense brake of black-brown beard that cleverly filled in the interval between Mr. Van Busch's luxuriant whiskers. Presently he stooped and picked up a little tan-leather glove, lying in a tuft of pink flowers. The daintiness of the little glove brought home to Bough more forcibly than anything else, that the ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... means?—coming to Europe?' she asked herself with a laugh that was not gay, while her fingers pulled at a tuft of hart's-tongue that grew in ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... stones, on sea-weeds or on floating logs, there may often be observed a growth of exquisitely delicate branches, looking at first sight more like a small bunch of moss than anything else. But gather such a mossy tuft and place it in a glass bowl filled with sea-water, and you will presently find that it is full of life and activity. Every branch of this miniature shrub terminates in a little club-shaped head, upon which are scattered a number of tentacles. They are in constant motion, extending and contracting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... looked strangely thick, dark, and straight, in contrast with the pencilled arches belonging to all the rest, she was less weird and elfin-like than when she had been three inches shorter, and dressed more childishly. As Edgar said, she was less Riquet with a tuft than the good fairy godmother, and her twin sisters might have been her princess-wards, so far did they tower above her—straight as fir-trees, oval faced, regular featured, fair skinned, blue eyed, and bright haired. During those long dreary hours, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the Local Government Board had been rather suspected of tuft-hunting recently, and his appearance in the stump orator's role, and in the cause of disarmament, was wonderfully popular. In his long career as Labour agitator, Socialist, and Radical, he had learned to know the popular pulse remarkably well; and now he responded ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson

... of the summer morning. For those dead women- folk, especially her mother and the whole row of maiden aunts and grand- aunts, could not but be anxious about the child, knowing that little Pansie would be far safer under a tuft of dandelions than if left alone, as she soon must be, in this difficult ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... Hurons believed that the chief cause of disease and death was a monstrous serpent, that lived under the earth. By touching a tuft of hair, a feather, or a fragment of bone, with a portion of his flesh or fat, the sorcerer imparted power to it of entering the body of his victim, and gradually killing him. It was an important part of the doctor's function to extract these charms from the vitals of his patient.— Ragueneau, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman

... not a moment to lose. The man had already gone down twice; he was coming up for the second time. Frank took his coat in one hand, and, leaning over the edge of the quarry at the risk of falling in himself, he caught hold of a tuft of grass with the other hand, and ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel

... certain weapons dangling at their sides should not be made to perform, and that without delay, an incision in the cranium of their proprietor. True, there was a difficulty. The veteran Major was partially bald, and wanted the top knot or scalping tuft, which to a true warrior was indispensable; not that we mean to insinuate that either of these chiefs would so far have forgotten the position in which that gentleman stood, as to have been tempted into any practical demonstration ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson

... ride-ox can be tied up by his nose-bridle; but, if wild or frightened, he will assuredly struggle till the nose-stick be torn out of his nose, and he becomes free. It is, therefore, better to tie the bridle to a tuft of grass, or a slender twig, rather than to a tree or to the saddle-bags. Mounting an ox is usually a troublesome business, on account of his horns. To make ride-oxen quiet and tame, scratch their backs and tails—they dearly love ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton

... had taken from the dead King of Bohemia. The boy rode up with his visor raised,—his face was as fair as a girl's, and glowed under a crown of golden hair. He bore his trophy aloft, and when it was placed as a knightly decoration above the crest of his helmet, he little thought that the triple tuft was to wave for more than five hundred years, even to this day, on England's front, for such it does, and that, next to the crown, there shall be no badge so proudly known as the three feathers which nod above the coronet of the Prince of Wales. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... river, while she, unconscious of the murderous stratagem, patiently awaited the turn of affairs which would free her from her terrible thralldom. Finally, an Indian, who was squatted behind a tree, gained a view of a tuft of her hair and brought his rifle to his shoulder. The sunlight that scintillated along the barrel of his weapon made it resemble a burnished spear, poised in his hand, while following it up to the stock, not only his crooked arm which supported ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis

... 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 ...
— John Bull on the Guadalquivir from Tales from all Countries • Anthony Trollope

... in the last (fifth) edition of "Natural Selection," 1869, p. 102, admits that all sexual differences are not to be attributed to the agency of sexual selection, mentioning the wattle of carrier pigeons, tuft of turkey-cock, &c. These characters, however, seem less inexplicable by sexual selection than those given in ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... for us to do so, up the foundations of the castle, and in fear and wonder that no repetition of the adventurous feat ever diminished, saw him take the young starling from the crevice beneath the tuft of wall-flowers. What was there of the bold and daring that Lawrie Logan was not, in our belief, able to perform? We were all several years younger—boys from nine to fifteen—and he had shot up into ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... A tuft o' the broom was knotted wi' tow, An' a rag on't fluttered free, While he shook his heid owre some ferlies there, That I'm bathered if I could see, Though I kent my soul was sib to his ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie

... — my lance from butt to tuft was dyed, The froth of battle bossed the shield and roped the bridle-chain — What time beneath our horses' feet a maiden rose and cried, And clung to Scindia, and I turned ...
— Verses 1889-1896 • Rudyard Kipling

... an abnormal size, partly from a hideous practice of shaving the head altogether for the first three years. After this the hair is allowed to grow in three tufts, one over each ear, and the other at the back of the neck; as often, however, a tuft is grown at the top of the back of the head. At ten the crown alone is shaved and a forelock is worn, and at fifteen, when the boy assumes the responsibilities of manhood, his hair is allowed to grow like that of a man. The grave dignity of these boys, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird



Words linked to "Tuft" :   staghead, hexenbesen, witches' broom, bunch, crest, witch broom, cluster, wisp, tussock, clustering, clump



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