Word of the day · Thursday, October 29, 2026

tussur

noun

A coarse, golden-brown silk spun by wild silkworms in India and China. One of several spellings of the same word, along with tussah, tussore, tusseh and tussar.

Where it comes from

From Hindi tasar, from Sanskrit tasara, a shuttle.

Worth knowing

Wild silkworms feed on oak and other trees rather than mulberry leaves, which gives the silk its uneven texture and natural gold color. It takes dye less evenly than cultivated silk.

By the letters

• 6letters
• 2vowels (A E I O U)
• noneuncommon letters
• 4different letters

Playing it

Few words have this many accepted spellings. If you know one form, the others are worth trying in any game with a large dictionary.

Hooks

One letter added to make a new word (what is a hook), at the end: TUSSURS.

One letter away

Words you get by changing a single letter, the steps of a word ladder.

• tussar
• tusser
• tussor

In Unsaid

TUSSUR was word of the day number 11 in Unsaid, a falling-letter word game where every player gets the same word on the same date. As a word it scores 900 points. Under the current rules, spelling it as the word of the day is worth a bonus of 9,800 reading down or 7,350 reading across, before any streak. How the bonus works.