Tasels

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Spiny thistle-like plants whose dried, prickly flower heads were once used to raise the nap on woollen cloth
2. Bristly wild plants with spiny flower heads, traditionally dried and employed by weavers to brush up the surface of fabric
3. Prickly herbaceous plants of the genus Dipsacus, or their hooked seed heads, historically used in finishing woollen textiles

Etymology: "Tasels" is the plural of "tasel," an old variant of "teasel," the spiky plant whose dried flower heads were once used to raise the nap on woollen cloth. The plant's name comes from Old English "tǣsel" (also "tǣsl"), a word tied to the verb "tǣsan," meaning "to tease" or "to pull apart," a reference to the way its bristly heads were used to tease fibres. Dyers and cloth-makers relied on the hooked bracts, and the plant was grown commercially for this purpose for centuries. Because the word has been used since Old English, it is an inherited native word rather than a loanword, and the spelling "tasel" survived alongside "teasel" for a long time before the latter became standard.

Synonyms: teasel