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tussie-mussie
Aug. 3rd, 2016 07:53 amtussie-mussie (TUHS-ee-MUHS-ee) - n., a small bouquet of flowers, a nosegay.
Especially in Victorian contexts, the contents of a tussie-mussie is significant as the contents are expected to follow the language of flowers (and how a woman wears or carries it is significant, too), while a nosegay won't necessarily. More info. The word dates back to Middle English, older form tussemose, but after that the trail gets cold, though it's speculated that there was an unrecorded word *tussy that meant a small bunch of flowers. It dropped out of open circulation for a while, in part because tuzzymuzzy became slang for a woman's private parts, but once that dropped out of circulation, this non-obscene cousin came back.
---L.
Especially in Victorian contexts, the contents of a tussie-mussie is significant as the contents are expected to follow the language of flowers (and how a woman wears or carries it is significant, too), while a nosegay won't necessarily. More info. The word dates back to Middle English, older form tussemose, but after that the trail gets cold, though it's speculated that there was an unrecorded word *tussy that meant a small bunch of flowers. It dropped out of open circulation for a while, in part because tuzzymuzzy became slang for a woman's private parts, but once that dropped out of circulation, this non-obscene cousin came back.
---L.
