A ball-shaped bunch of plaited or otherwise entangled threads from which at one end protrudes a cord on which the ball is hung, and which may have loose, dangling threads at the other end (often used as decoration along the bottom of garments, curtains or other hangings).
The Giant's boots were of pink leather and had tassels on them and his hat was decorated with an enormous pink ostrich feather, carefully curled.1912, L. Frank Baum, The Patchwork Girl of Oz:
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Biology, Botany, Natural sciences The panicle on a male plant of maize, which consists of loose threads with anthers on them.
The plant world is very busy and helpful when it seems to be playing. The tall, plumy tassels at the tops of corn stalks, swing much as you do under the maple tree. But those tassels are so loaded with pollen that you can often see a brown dust hovering over a corn field. As the wind blows the tassels, the pollen is shaken down in clouds.1915, Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, The How and Why Library, Life - Plants - Section IX:
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The loose hairs at the end of a braid.
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A narrow silk ribbon, or similar, sewn to a book to be put between the pages.
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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.
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A kind of bur used in dressing cloth; a teasel.
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A thin plate of gold on the back of a bishop's gloves.
Etymology From Middle English tassel, from Old French tassel, from Latin tāxillus (“small cube”), from tālus (“ankle”).
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To adorn with tassels.
[…] gauzes of silver mist; Loop’d up with cords of twisted wreathed light, And tassell’d round with weeping meteors!1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, act V, scene V, verses 37-39:
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Biology, Botany, Natural sciences To put forth a tassel or flower.