A tuft is a small bunch of things that grow or are held together at the bottom and spread out at the top — hair, feathers, grass, fur, thread. The bottom is gathered; the top is loose. That shape is the whole meaning. A baby with a tuft of hair sticking up at the back; a tuft of grass in a bare field; a bird with a tuft of feathers on its head. It is nearly always small, and nearly always one of several — you notice a tuft because the space around it is empty. You will see it most in three places: hair (especially messy or thin hair, and hair that survives when the rest is gone — an old man with a few white tufts), plants (grass and weeds growing in separated clumps, on a hillside or between paving stones), and animals (fur, or the little bunch at the end of a lion's tail). The word carries a faint feeling of untidiness or sparseness, so writers reach for it when they want something to look worn, wild, or neglected. There is also a verb, to tuft, but you will hardly ever need it; it is mostly about furniture — a tufted sofa has buttons pulled deep into the cushion so the fabric gathers around them. Related and much commoner is the adjective tufted.