tease

[TEASE, v.] One who teases; a plague; as, You are a great tease. To be on the tease : To be uneasy or fidgety. tea-şel, *tea-sell, tēa'-zel, *ta-zel, tēa-zle, *tes-el, s . [A. S. tæsl , tæsel , from tæsan=to tease (q. v.).) 1. Botany, .: (1) The genus Dipsacus (q. v.). About 150 species are known, natives of the temperate parts of the Old World and of America. This order consists of herbaceous and half-shrubby exogenous plants with opposite or whorled leaves, and flowers in heads. The only valuable species of the order, Dipsacus fullonum , Fuller's Teasel, is four feet high, the bracts hooked, the flowers oval, pale purple or whitish. It is probably only a variety of D. sylvestris. It grows best in a stiff loam. The crooked awns or chaffs are fixed around the circumference of large broad wheels or cylinders, and woolen cloth is held against them. They raise a nap upon it which is afterward cut level. A piece of fine broad cloth requires 1,500 to 2,000 of them to bring out the nap, after which the teasels are broken and usele . Steel 1. Flower; 2. Fruit; 3. Stem substitutes for teasels and leaves; 4. A bract. IMG:content-0862.jpg:[graphic][subsumed][merged small] have been tried, but ineffectually; they are not sufficiently pliant, and tear the fine fibers of the cloth. (2) The burr of the plant. 2. Mech. & Cloth Manuf.: Any contrivance used as a substitute for teasels in the dre ing of woolen cloth.