Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To struggle roughly; scuffle.
  • noun A rough or vigorous struggle; a scuffle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A struggle; a conflict; a scuffle.
  • To struggle; wrestle confusedly; scuffle.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun colloq. A struggle; a scuffle.
  • verb colloq. To struggle, as in sport; to scuffle; to struggle with.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A physical fight or struggle.
  • verb To have a tussle.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb fight or struggle in a confused way at close quarters
  • noun disorderly fighting
  • verb make messy or untidy

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English tussillen, frequentative of -tousen, to pull roughly.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Related to tousle.

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