A hassock is named after the clumps of coarse grass that medieval worshippers stuffed into cushions to kneel on in church.
A thick, firm cushion used for kneeling on in church, or a tuft of coarse grass or sedge growing in a clump.
From Old English hassuc, meaning a clump of coarse grass or matted vegetation. The sense of a kneeling cushion developed because early hassocks were literally stuffed with dried grass and sedge. Key roots: hassuc (Old English: "clump of matted grass").
The hassock's dual meaning — a church cushion and a clump of grass — is not a coincidence. Medieval hassocks were literally stuffed with the dried grass they were named after. The word is one of a small group of Old English terms that survived the Norman Conquest unchanged, perhaps because it referred to something so humble that no French equivalent was needed. In