Word of the Day:

February 23, 2025

tousle

verb TOW-zul

What it Means

To tousle something is to dishevel it—that is, to make it untidy or unkempt. Tousle is usually, though not always, used specifically when a person’s hair is being so treated.

// Vic stood in front of the mirror and tousled his hair, trying to get a cool, disheveled look.

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Tousle in Context

“One of her hands tousled her long hair, which she wore down, and the other hand hovered in front of her skirt as she hooked a thumb in its waistband. She paired the fashion set with a choker necklace and dangling hoop earrings.” — Meghan Roos, Parade, 21 Mar. 2024

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Did You Know?

The verb tousle today is typically used for the action of mussing someone’s hair playfully (“tousling the toddler’s hair”) or fussily (“tousling her tresses for that just-woke-up look”), but the word’s history is a bit edgier. Tousle and its synonym touse come from -tousen (“to pull or handle roughly”), a frequentative of the Middle English verb touselen. (A frequentative indicates repeated or recurrent action; sniffle, for example, is a frequentative of sniff.) Both tousle and touse have older meanings having to do with rough handling in general; before hair was tousled, people were—ouch. It’s no coincidence that another frequentative of -tousen, the Scots word tussillen, is the ancestor of the English verb tussle, meaning “to scuffle” or “to fight or struggle with someone by grabbing or pushing.”