tufty

adj

1. Having the form of or resembling a tuft (“a bunch of grass, hair, etc., held together at the base”).

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “In recent years Nelson has grown a mustache, a tufty brown smudge not much wider than his nose.”

2. Covered in or having many tufts.

   “Witneſs, thou best Anâna, 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!”

   “In and out of the tufts they went, with their eyes dilating; wishing to be out of harm, if conscience were but satisfied. And of this tufty flaggy ground, pocked with bogs and boglets, one especial nature is that it will not hold impressions.”

3. (obsolete, rare)Covered in or having many tufts.

   “The Sylvans that about the neighbouring vvoods did dvvell, / Both in the tufty Frith and in the moſſy Fell, / Forſook their gloomy Bovvres, and vvandred farre abroad, / Expeld their quiet fears, and place of their abode, […]”

4. Growing in tufts.

   “If you haue ſeene at foot of ſome braue hill, / Tvvo Springs ariſe, and delicately trill, / In gentle chidings through an humble dale, / (VVhere tufty Daizies nod at euery gale) […]”

5. (obsolete)Of a cow: seeking a bull to mate with.

noun

1. (British, informal)The tufted duck (Aythya fuligula).

   “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.”