tussock

noun

Etymology: Uncertain. Likely from or related to tusk + -ock (diminutive suffix). Compare Middle High German zūsach (“thicket”), a derivative of Middle High German zūse (“lock of hair”). Compare also Scottish Gaelic dosag (“little tuft”).

1. A tuft or clump of green grass or similar verdure, forming a small hillock.

   “An Indian grazing ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear.”

   “Next morning I was off to Lochtully, which, as you know, is in the north of Perthshire. It stands three miles from the station, a great gray pinnacled house, with two towers cocking out above the fir woods, like a hare’s ears from a tussock of grass.”

2. Tussock grass.

   “I yearned, painfully, for […] a sight and touch of a hillside covered with golden tussock.”