wool
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
See also: Wool
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English wolle, from Old English wull, from Proto-West Germanic *wullu, from Proto-Germanic *wullō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂.
Cognates
The vowel development u → o → oo is purely graphical. Modern English generally avoids the string ‹wu› in favour of ‹wo›, and the resulting woll was then altered to wool (as supposedly better representing the pronunciation).
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /wʊl/
- (General American) enPR: wo͝ol, IPA(key): /wʊl/, [wʊ̠ɫ], [wɫ̩], [wəl]
- (Scotland, Northern Ireland) IPA(key): /wʉl/
- Rhymes: -ʊl
Noun
[edit]wool (usually uncountable, plural wools)
- The hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants.
- 2006, Nigel Guy Wilson, Ancient Greece, page 692:
- The sheep were caught and plucked, because shears had not yet been invented to cut the wool from the sheep's back.
- A cloth or yarn made from such hair.
- 2009 January 12, Mireya Navarro, “It May Market Organic Alternatives, but Is Your Cleaner Really Greener?”, in New York Times:
- Spielvogel said wet cleaning also has limitations; while it is fine for cottons and fabrics worn in warm climates, he said, it can damage heavy wools or structured clothes like suit jackets.
- Anything with a fibrous texture like that of sheep's wool.
- Hyponyms: cotton wool; wood wool; mineral wool, rockwool, glass wool; wire wool, aluminum wool, brass wool, steel wool
- 1975, Anthony Julian Huxley, Plant and Planet, page 223:
- The groundsels have leaves covered in wool for insulation […]
- A fine fiber obtained from the leaves of certain trees, such as firs and pines.
- (obsolete) Short, thick hair, especially when crisped or curled.
- c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
- wool of bat and tongue of dog
- (British, New Zealand) Yarn, including that made from synthetic fibers.
- (Liverpool, derogatory) A woolly back; a resident of a satellite town outside Liverpool, such as St Helens or Warrington. See also Yonner.
- (slang) A marijuana cigarette or cigar laced with crack cocaine.
- 1991 March 29, “Slow Down” (0:25 from the start), in One for All[1], performed by Brand Nubian:
- The object of your affection is the treetop connection / Where basically you love to smoke your wools
- 2003 June 24, “Sabotage” (0:40 from the start), in The Ownerz[2], performed by Gang Starr:
- He rocked Caesar's chains, he pushed Caesar's Range / Smokin' mad wools all day, with Caesar's change
Hyponyms
[edit]Coordinate terms
[edit]Derived terms
[edit]- abb-wool
- all wool and a yard wide
- andalusian wool
- angora wool
- breech wool
- bullswool
- burry wool
- cony wool
- cotton wool
- cotton-wool
- cotton wool ball
- cotton wool bud
- darning wool
- dead pulled wool
- dewool
- dyed in the wool
- dyed-in-the-wool
- dye in the wool
- feather wool
- fleece wool
- gather wool
- glass wool
- go to the goat's house for wool
- great cry and little wool
- ice wool
- kaowool
- lambswool
- longwool
- meat wool
- mestizo wool
- milk wool
- mineral wool
- more cry than wool
- much cry and little wool
- nonwool
- philosopher's wool
- philosopher's wool
- philosophers' wool
- philosophical wool
- pig's wool
- polywool
- pull the wool over somebody's eyes
- pull the wool over someone's eyes
- rag wool
- rock wool
- rockwool
- scoured wool
- seed wool
- Shetland wool
- shorn wool
- shortwool
- skin wool
- slut's wool
- steel wool
- steel-wool
- thibet wool
- underwool
- virgin wool
- warm as wool
- waste of wool
- wire wool
- wolf in wool
- wood wool
- wood-wool
- Wool Bay
- Wool Bay
- woolbroker
- wool classer
- woolclasser
- woolclassing
- wool classing
- wool clip
- woolcomb
- woolcomber
- wool comber
- woolcombing
- wooldriver
- wool-dyed
- wooled
- wool fat
- wool-fat
- woolfell
- wool-gather
- woolgathering
- wool-gathering
- woolgrass
- wool grease
- woolgrower
- woolgrowing
- woolhall
- woolhat
- woolhead
- wool-headed
- wool-hole
- woolhouse
- woolish
- woollen, woolen
- woolless
- woollike
- woolly, wooly
- woolman
- woolmonger
- wool moth
- wool oil
- woolpack
- woolpacker
- wool picker
- woolsack
- woolsedge
- woolshearer
- woolshearing
- woolshed
- woolskin
- woolsorter
- wool sorter
- woolsorting
- wool stapler
- woolstock
- woolulose
- woolward
- woolwasher
- wool wax
- woolwear
- woolwinder
- woolwork
- woolworker
- woolworking
- woolworks
Descendants
[edit]- → Japanese: ウール (ūru)
Translations
[edit]hair of sheep, etc.
|
cloth or yarn
|
anything with a texture like that of wool
References
[edit]- “wool”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “wool”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- “wool”, in The Right Rhymes, launched 2013.
Further reading
[edit]Cornish
[edit]Noun
[edit]wool
- Soft mutation of gool.
Tlingit
[edit]Noun
[edit]wool
Categories:
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *h₂welh₁- (wool)
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-West Germanic
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms inherited from Proto-Indo-European
- English doublets
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/ʊl
- Rhymes:English/ʊl/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English uncountable nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with quotations
- English terms with obsolete senses
- British English
- New Zealand English
- Liverpudlian English
- English derogatory terms
- English slang
- en:Fabrics
- en:Fibers
- en:Hair
- Cornish non-lemma forms
- Cornish mutated nouns
- Cornish soft-mutation forms
- Tlingit lemmas
- Tlingit nouns