Tassel

1. n. A piece of board that is laid upon a wall as a sort of plate, to give a level surface to the ends of floor timbers; — rarely used in the United States.
2. n. A male hawk. See Tercel.
3. n. A kind of bur used in dressing cloth; a teasel.
4. n. A pendent ornament, attached to the corners of cushions, to curtains, and the like, ending in a tuft of loose threads or cords.
5. n. The flower or head of some plants, esp. when pendent.
6. n. A narrow silk ribbon, or the like, sewed to a book to be put between the leaves.

The word meanings were obtained from OPTED(The Online Plain Text English Dictionary), which is based on “The Project Gutenberg Etext of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary” which is in turn based on the 1913 US Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (See Project Gutenburg), as a text file.