Word.ws English Dictionary

tousled

/ˈtaʊ.zəld/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

also/ˈtaʊ.səld/

tousled adjective: of hair: in disarray, dishevelled, or unkempt. Also the simple past and past participle of tousle.

Adjective

tousled (comparative more tousled, superlative most tousled)

  1. Of hair: in disarray, dishevelled, or unkempt.
    • His shoes were covered with mud, and he was looking very rough and touzled; but then he had never been a very smart man, the Badger, at the best of times.1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, “‘Like Summer Tempests Came His Tears’”, in The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 261
    • An instant later the maid, who looked as tousled and bewildered as if she had that instant been aroused from the deepest sleep, appeared with a card upon a tray.1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

Also used as

tousled is also the simple past and past participle of tousle.

Forms of tousled

comparativemore tousled
superlativemost tousled
alternative formtouzled

Words formed from tousled

Questions about tousled

What does tousled mean?
Tousled means of hair: in disarray, dishevelled, or unkempt.
What part of speech is tousled?
Tousled is an adjective.
How do you pronounce tousled?
Tousled is pronounced /ˈtaʊ.zəld/.

Words near tousled in the dictionary

  1. Tousignants
  2. tousing
  3. tousle
  4. tousle-haired
  5. tousle-headed
  6. tousled
  7. touslement
  8. tousler
  9. touslers
  10. tousles
  11. Tousley

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tousled (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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