Poor Tassel (A)

A poor hand, a bad workman, no great shakes. The tassel or tiercel was a male goshawk, restricted to princes, and called a “tassel gentle.”

“Venturing this opinion to the brick-maker, he laughingly replied, ‘Come, then, and try your hand at a brick.ʹ The trial, however, proved me a ‘poor tassel,ʹ amidst the jeers and laughter of the men.”—C. Thomson: Autobiography, p. 52.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.