Other forms: tendrils
A tendril is a thin curling shoot a climbing plant grips with. Tendrils of ivy, curling tendrils, tendrils of hair.
It coils tighter once it has caught hold, which pulls the plant up towards the support. The figurative use is common and gentle, so tendrils of hair or of mist are anything thin and curling.
1nountendrilA thin curling shoot a climbing plant grips with.
“The pea plants sent out tendrils that curled around the garden net.”
tendril is a shoot.
Middle French tendrillon may come from tendre, tender or soft.
Latin
tendere — to stretch, extend
Old French
tendre — soft
Middle French
tendrillon — bud, shoot, cartilage
English, today
tendril
Built from
From Middle French tendrillon (“bud, shoot, cartilage”), perhaps a diminutive of tendron (“cartilage”), from Old French tendre (“soft”) (see tender), or else from Latin tendere (“to stretch, extend”) (see tender).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA