a. Also 7 tuffle. [f. TUFT sb. + -Y.]
1. Full of or abounding in tufts; covered or adorned with tufts: a. of hair, thread, or the like.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (Surtees), 6. Signes of a good Ewe…. Her buttocke broade and large, and shewing tufty and thicke of wooll.
1716. M. Davies, Athen. Brit., II. 241. His black Thread-bare Coat … of a tufty and rusty Hue.
1848. Fraser’s Mag., XXXVII. 404. Shaven round his head, so as to leave a tufty patch at top.
b. Of foliage, herbage, or blossoms.
1638. Brathwait, Barnabees Jrnl., III. (1818), 133. Vallies … Deckt with lufty woods.
1796. Anna Seward, Hoyle Lake, in New Ann. Reg., 158. Dry are the tufty downs, diffusive spread O’er the light surface of the sandy mound.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., lix. Here the ground lay jagged and shaggy, wrought up with high tufts of reed…. This tufty, flaggy ground will not hold impressions.
1903. Academy, 25 July, 94/2. Yarrow and the tufty melilot.
c. Covered with tufts or clumps of trees. rare–1.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xvii. 388. About the neighbouring woods … in the tufty Frith, and in the mossy Fell.
2. Forming a tuft or tufts; consisting of or growing in tufts.
1611. Cotgr., Touffu..., tuffie [1632 Sherwood, Tuftie or tuffie], thicke growing, thicke of boughs, growing close together.
1613–6. W. Browne, Brit. Past., I. v. 310. An humble dale, Where tufty daizies nod at every gale.
1776. Phil. Trans., LXVI. 100. Islands are overspread with a short, tufty, round grass.
1889. Standard, 24 April. They are all distinguished by frizzly hair, more or less tufty.
