TUSSOCK • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tussock

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noun

Tussock n. (Written also tussuck)

A tuft, as of grass, twigs, hair, or the like; especially, a dense tuft or bunch of grass or sedge. "Such laying of the hair in tussocks and tufts."

(Bot.) Same as Tussock grass, below.

(Zool.) A caterpillar of any one of numerous species of bombycid moths. The body of these caterpillars is covered with hairs which form long tufts or brushes. Some species are very injurious to shade and fruit trees. Called also tussock caterpillar. See Orgyia.

Tussock grass. (Bot.)

(a)

A tall, strong grass of the genus Dactylis (Dactylis caespitosa), valuable for fodder, introduced into Scotland from the Falkland Islands.

(b)

A tufted grass (Aira caespitosa).

(c)

Any kind of sedge (Carex) which forms dense tufts in a wet meadow or boggy place.

Tussock moth (Zool.), the imago of any tussock caterpillar. They belong to Orgyia, Halecidota, and allied genera.

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Etymology of 'Tussock'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tussock" Quotes from Famous Books

... the Indian had indeed reached the highest pitch of woodcraft. He took his bow and three good arrows, tied a band around his head, and into this stuck a lot of twigs and vines, so that his head looked like a tussock of herbage. Then he left the shanty door, and, concealed by the last bushes on the edge, he reached the open plain. Two hundred yards off was the buck, nosing among the herbage, and, from time to time, raising its superb head and columnar neck to ...

— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... is usual with his tribe, had two entrances to his lodge, one a tortuous passage opening under water and leading inward about a foot, then slanting upward five or six feet, the other leading to the open air, its exit cleverly concealed by a tussock of coarse grass. Here he lived a life of ease and also of adventure, feasting on sweet-flag root, rushes and lily stems, of which there was always an abundance close at hand, and taking his exercise in the water or in his many runways in the long grass bordering the stream. The muskrat had ...

— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer

... to open the gates, and took Priam inside with the treasure he had upon his waggon. Ere long they came to the lofty dwelling of the son of Peleus for which the Myrmidons had cut pine and which they had built for their king; when they had built it they thatched it with coarse tussock-grass which they had mown out on the plain, and all round it they made a large courtyard, which was fenced with stakes set close together. The gate was barred with a single bolt of pine which it took three men to force into its place, and three to draw back so as to ...

— The Iliad • Homer

... stuck up like human heads, fantastically dressed, thrusting up at us out of the ground with crests of dead hair. We stumbled and floundered among them. It was hard going, and I could well conceive it impossible to find a way at all in the night-time. We jumped, when possible, from tussock to tussock, and it seemed as though we were springing among heads on a battlefield, and that this dead white grass concealed eyes that turned ...

— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

Words linked to "Tussock" : hexenbesen, cluster, witch broom, clustering, tussock bellflower, tuft, tussock moth, witches' broom, bunch, tussock caterpillar