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Tassel vs Fringe - What's the difference?

tassel | fringe |

As nouns the difference between tassel and fringe

is that tassel is a ball-shaped bunch of plaited or otherwise entangled threads from which at one end protrudes a cord on which the tassel is hung, and which may have loose, dangling threads at the other end. Tassels are normally decorative elements, and as such one often finds them attached, usually along the bottom hem, to garments, curtains or other hangings while fringe is a decorative border.

As verbs the difference between tassel and fringe

is that tassel is to adorn with tassels while fringe is to decorate with fringe.

As an adjective fringe is

outside the mainstream.

tassel

English

(wikipedia tassel)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A ball-shaped bunch of plaited or otherwise entangled threads from which at one end protrudes a cord on which the tassel is hung, and which may have loose, dangling threads at the other end. Tassels are normally decorative elements, and as such one often finds them attached, usually along the bottom hem, to garments, curtains or other hangings.
  • The male inflorescence of maize, which consists of loose threads with anthers on them.
  • The loose hairs at the end of a braid.
  • A narrow silk ribbon, or similar, sewed to a book to be put between the pages.
  • (architecture) A piece of board that is laid upon a wall as a sort of plate, to give a level surface to the ends of floor timbers.
  • A kind of bur used in dressing cloth; a teasel.

    • Related terms

    * sword knot

    Verb

    (tassell)
  • To adorn with .
  • * 1819 , , Otho the Great , Act V, Scene V, verses 37-39
    • […] gauzes of silver mist;
    Loop’d up with cords of twisted wreathed light,
    And tassell’d round with weeping meteors!
  • To put forth a tassel or flower.
    • Maize is a crop that tassels .

    Anagrams

    * ----

    fringe

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A decorative border.
    • the fringe of a picture
  • A marginal or peripheral part.
  • * (and other bibliographic particulars) (Jeremy Taylor)
    • the confines of grace and the fringes of repentance
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=September 29 , author=Jon Smith , title=Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Dos Santos, who has often been on the fringes at Spurs since moving from Barcelona, whipped in a fantastic cross that Pavlyuchenko emphatically headed home for his first goal of the season.}}
  • Those members of a political party, or any social group, holding unorthodox views.
  • The periphery of a town or city.
    • He lives in the fringe of London.
  • That part of the hair that hangs down above the eyes; bangs.
    • Her fringe is so long it covers her eyes.
  • * 1915 , ":
    • In a few minutes Mrs. Athelny appeared. She had taken her hair out of the curling pins and now wore an elaborate fringe .
  • * 1981 , , HERmione , page 155,
    • Fayne in the photograph had a fringe , hair frizzed over hidden ears, sleeves over-ornate, the whole thing out of keeping.
  • * 2007 , , Sophie's Dilemma , page 16,
    • Ingeborg knew she wasn?t ready for fringes or short hair like some of the women she?d seen, and she hoped her daughter wasn?t either.
    “No.” Astrid?s tone dismissed Sophie and the fringe as she galloped off to a new topic.
  • * 2009 , Geraldine Biddle-Perry, Sarah Cheang, Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion , page 231,
    • Set against the seductive visual and textual imagery of these soft-focus fantasy worlds, the stock list details offer the reader a very real solution to achieving the look themselves, ‘Hair, including coloured fringes (obtainable from Joseph, £3.50) by Paul Nix’ (Baker 1972a: 68).
  • (label) A light or dark band formed by the diffraction of light.
    • interference fringe
  • Non-mainstream theatre.
    • The Fringe''; ''Edinburgh Fringe'''''; ''Adelaide '''Fringe
  • (label) The peristome or fringe-like appendage of the capsules of most mosses.

    • Synonyms

    * (hair in front) forelock, bangs (US) *

    Derived terms

    * fringe benefit * fringy * lunatic fringe

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Outside the mainstream.

    • Synonyms

    * nonmainstream

    Verb

    (fring)
  • To decorate with fringe.
  • To serve as a fringe.
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 2
    • Purple bonnets fringed soft, pink, querulous faces on pillows in bath chairs.

    Anagrams

    *