tress - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English tresse, from Old French tresce, of uncertain origin; possibly from Vulgar Latin *trichia, from Ancient Greek τριχία (trikhía, “rope”), from θρίξ (thríx, “hair”). Compare French tresse, Italian treccia.

tress (plural tresses)

  1. A braid, knot, or curl, of hair; a ringlet.
    • 1910, Theodore C. Williams, The Aeneid, translation of Aeneis by Virgil, Book IV Chapter 28:
      nor was the doom / of guilty deed, but of a hapless wight / to sudden madness stung, ere ripe to die, / therefore the Queen of Hades had not shorn / the fair tress from her forehead, nor assigned / that soul to Stygian dark.
    • 1914, Eleanor H. Porter, Miss Billy Married‎[1]:
      “Mercy! If I had a husband whose business it was to look at women's beautiful eyes, peachy cheeks, and luxurious tresses, I should go crazy! […] ”
    • 2006, Thomas Pynchon, “Iceland Spar”, in Against the Day, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 353:
      Even without theatrical shoes on, Erlys was taller than Luca Zombini, and kept her fair hair in a Psyche knot, out of which the less governable tresses continued, with the day, to escape.
  2. A long lock of hair.
  3. (by extension) A knot or festoon, as of flowers.

A braid, knot, or curl, of hair; a ringlet

tress (third-person singular simple present tresses, present participle tressing, simple past and past participle tressed)

  1. To braid or knot hair.