TRESS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does tress mean? 

• TRESS (noun)
  The noun TRESS has 1 sense:

1. a hairdo formed by braiding or twisting the hair

  Familiarity information: TRESS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TRESS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A hairdo formed by braiding or twisting the hair

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Synonyms:

braid; plait; tress; twist

Hypernyms ("tress" is a kind of...):

coif; coiffure; hair style; hairdo; hairstyle (the arrangement of the hair (especially a woman's hair))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tress"):

queue (a braid of hair at the back of the head)

pigtail (a plait of braided hair)

 Context examples 

I laid the two tresses together, and I assure you that they were identical.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She had her arms around the Doctor's neck, and he leant his head down over her, mingling his grey hair with her dark brown tresses.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

She had then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the wild grace of natural curls.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

By a curious chance you came upon her tresses.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses—all advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

In her anger she clutched Rapunzel’s beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary's pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The head was finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)