Etymologically
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fleece

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Pronunciation

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English flees, also fles,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English flēos, also flīes and flȳs,[5][3][6][4] inherited from Proto-West Germanic *fleus.[4] It is cognate with Middle Dutch vluus, Dutch vlies, Middle High German vlius and German Vlies;[7][3][8] an ablaut variant appears in Middle Low German vlūs (“sheepskin”) and German Flaus (“woollen coat”).[5][9] Barnhart explains the German v- as Dutch spelling, helped by a popular association with Latin vellus (“fleece”).[3] Most dictionaries think it probably related to Latin plūma (“down, feather”), the source of plume;[5][10][9][8] Etymonline, after Watkins, and Köbler derive it from Proto-Indo-European *pleus- (“to pluck; feather, fleece”), which also gave Lithuanian plunksna (“feather”).[7][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The woolly coat of a sheep: the OED's first record is in the laws of Ine, which fix the value of a fleece at two pence.[5][13] In Old English it could also mean wool, fur or sealskin.[7]

Semantic evolution

By the 15th century it also meant the wool shorn from one sheep at a time (about 1460, in Fortescue).[5] From 1525 it was used of the Order of the Golden Fleece,[5] instituted in 1430 by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.[14] Its likeness was extended to a crop of grass (1513), a mass of hair (1577), and snow or white clouds (1671).[5] The verb, first recorded in 1537, meant to pluck or shear wool, and figuratively to get by unfair means;[5][3][6] from the 1570s it meant to strip a person of money, as a sheep is stripped of its wool,[7][5] and Ayto traces this sense of swindling to the 16th century.[12] Weekley thought the verb had always been figurative,[14] but the OED records the literal "to shear a sheep" from 1628.[5] The noun later named a soft fabric with a pile, used for linings (1853), then a synthetic fabric and a jacket made of it (1992).[5][15] In Bedfordshire and Suffolk a fleece was a crop of vegetation, and in Cheshire a layer of hay in a stack.[16]

Timeline

  • Old English – the woolly coat of a sheep, in the laws of Ine.[5]
  • c. 1380 – flees, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.[3]
  • c. 1460 – the wool shorn from one sheep.[5]
  • 1513 – a crop of vegetation.[5]
  • 1525 – the Order of the Golden Fleece.[5]
  • 1537 – verb, to shear off wool; figuratively, to get by unfair means.[5][6]
  • 1567 – fleecy.[3]
  • 1577 – to strip a person of money; a head of hair.[5]
  • 1628 – to strip a sheep of its fleece.[5]
  • 1671 – anything like a fleece, such as a cloud or falling snow.[5]
  • 1841 – in the US, meat from the hump of the bison.[5]
  • 1853 – a fabric with a soft pile.[5]
  • 1992 – a jacket made of synthetic fleece.[5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The coat of wool that covers a sheep or a similar animal.[6][15][5]
  2. The wool shorn from one sheep at one time.[6][15][5]
  3. Something like a fleece in softness or texture: a fleece of fresh snow.[6][15][5]
  4. A soft fabric with a pile, especially a warm polyester fabric with a brushed surface used for outdoor clothes.[15][5]
  5. A jacket or top made of such fabric.[15][5]
  6. (heraldry) The figure of a ram's fleece hung from a ring or band.[6][5]

Verb

  1. To swindle or cheat someone out of money; to overcharge: The tourists were fleeced by the taxi driver.[6][15][5]
  2. To shear the fleece from a sheep.[6][15][5]
  3. To cover or fleck with masses like fleece.[6][5]

Word family

  • fleecer
  • fleeceable
  • fleeceless
  • fleecelike
  • fleecy
  • Golden Fleece

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  12. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  13. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  14. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)