Tousle

 WORD OF THE DAY

tousle / verb / TOW-zul

Definition:

1a: Scotland - rough dalliance 

1b: tussle

2: a tangled mass (of hair)

Examples

"Mr. Sliwa grinned as he touseled a Shih Tzu named Sonnyboy, calling him a 'puffball.'" — Nate Schweber, The New York Times, 22 June 2021

In front of him was a woman with her face thrown up to the sky, her hands rising as if to tousle her hair.

— Amanda Hess, New York Times, 11 May 2020

 

Did You Know?

Tousle is a word that has been through what linguists call a "functional shift." That's a fancy way of saying it was originally one part of speech, then gradually came to have an additional function. Tousle started out as a verb back in the 15th century and, after a few centuries of grooming, debuted as a noun referring to a tangled mass (also often used to talk about messy hair). Etymologists connect tousle to an Old High German word meaning "to pull to pieces."