English Explanatory Dictionary

wool

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. The hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants.
  2. A cloth or yarn made from such hair.
  3. Anything with a fibrous texture like that of sheep's wool.
  4. A fine fiber obtained from the leaves of certain trees, such as firs and pines.
  5. Short, thick hair, especially when crisped or curled.
  6. Yarn, including that made from synthetic fibers.
  7. A woolly back; a resident of a satellite town outside Liverpool, such as St Helens or Warrington. See also Yonner.
  8. A marijuana cigarette or cigar laced with crack cocaine.
name
  1. A village and civil parish in Dorset, England, previously in Purbeck district (OS grid ref SY8486).

Pronunciation

/wʊl/ wo͝ol [wʊ̠ɫ] [wəl] [wul] en-us-wool.ogg /wʉl/

Word forms

wool wools

Etymology

From Middle English wolle, from Old English wull, from Proto-West Germanic *wullu, from Proto-Germanic *wullō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Wulle, German Low German Wull, Dutch wol, German Wolle, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ull, Danish uld; also Welsh gwlân, Latin lāna, Lithuanian vi̇̀lna, Russian во́лос (vólos), Slovak vlna, Bulgarian влас (vlas), Albanian lesh (“wool, hair, fleece”). Doublet of lana. 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).

Synonyms

wooler woolie

Derived words

abb-wool all cry and no 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 philosophers' wool philosopher's wool philosophical wool pig's wool polywool pull the wool over somebody's eyes pull the wool over someone's eyes rag wool rockwool rock wool salamander's wool 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

Translations

Arabic: صُوف Armenian: բուրդ Asturian: llana Basque: ardile Belarusian: пра́жа Belarusian: во́ўна Breton: gloanaj Breton: gloanenn Bulgarian: вълна́ Bulgarian: пре́жда Burmese: သိုးမွေး Chinese Mandarin: 羊毛 Chinese Mandarin: 毛線 /毛线 Czech: vlna Czech: příze Dutch: wol Estonian: vill Finnish: villa French: laine Georgian: შალის ქსოვილი Georgian: შალი German: Wolle Gothic: 𐍅𐌿𐌻𐌻𐌰 Greek: μαλλί Ancient Greek: ἔριον Mycenaean Greek: 𐀔𐀪 Hausa: ulu Hindi: ऊन Hungarian: gyapjú Italian: lana Japanese: 羊毛 Khmer: រោមចៀម Korean: 털실 Korean: 양모 Lao: ຂົນສັດ Latvian: dzija Lithuanian: vilnonas Macedonian: во́лница Macedonian: пре́ѓа Navajo: aghaaʼ Norman: laine Norwegian Bokmål: ull Norwegian Nynorsk: ull Pannonian Rusyn: волна Polish: wełna Polish: przędza Portuguese: lã Romanian: lână Russian: шерсть Russian: пря́жа
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