tassel

Etymology

From Middle English tassel, from Old French tassel, from Latin taxillus (“small cube”), from tālus (“ankle”).

noun

1. 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).
2. (botany) The panicle on a male plant of maize, which consists of loose threads with anthers on them.
3. The loose hairs at the end of a braid.
4. A narrow silk ribbon, or similar, sewed to a book to be put between the pages.
5. (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.
6. A kind of bur used in dressing cloth; a teasel.
7. A thin plate of gold on the back of a bishop's gloves.

verb

1. (transitive) To adorn with tassels.
   […] gauzes of silver mist; Loop’d up with cords of twisted wreathed light, 1819, John Keats, Otho the Great, act V, scene V, verses 37-39
2. (intransitive, botany) To put forth a tassel or flower.
   Maize is a crop that tassels.