fleece

From Middle English flees, flese, flus, fleos, from Old English flēos, flīes, flȳs, from Proto-West Germanic *fleus.

• IPA^(key): /fliːs/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːs

fleece (countable and uncountable, plural fleeces)

1. (uncountable) Hair or wool of a sheep or similar animal
   • 1730, Allan Ramsay, “[Act II, Scene IV]”, in The Gentle Shepherd: A Scots Paſtoral-Comedy, page 23:

     The Sun ſhall change, the Moon to change ſhall ceaſe; / The Gaits to clim-----the Sheep to yield the Fleece, / Ere ought by me be either ſaid or done, / Shall do thee Wrang, I ſwear by all aboon.

   • 1837, William Youatt, “Preface”, in Sheep: Their Breeds, Management and Diseases. […] (Library of Useful Knowledge), London: Baldwin and Cradock:

     Wool became the substitute for money. […] In all the middle periods of British history, the fleece was the expression and the measure of national prosperity or calamity.

2. (uncountable) Insulating skin with the wool attached
3. (countable) A textile similar to velvet, but with a longer pile that gives it a softness and a higher sheen.
4. (countable) An insulating wooly jacket
5. (roofing) Mat or felts composed of fibers, sometimes used as a membrane backer.
6. Any soft woolly covering resembling a fleece.
   • 1879 January, Ellis Clare, “The Christmas Eaglet”, in Ballou's Monthly Magazine, volume 49, number 1, Boston: Thomes & Talbot:

     Alas! in the morning the eaglet was gone; and, full of sorrow, they stooped to pick up the shining fleece with which the floor was spread. At their touch, every feather became a golden coin.

7. The fine web of cotton or wool removed by the doffing knife from the cylinder of a carding machine.

fleece (third-person singular simple present fleeces, present participle fleecing, simple past and past participle fleeced)

1. (transitive) To con or trick (someone) out of money.
   • 2015 August 2, “All bets are off: why bookmakers aren’t playing fair”, in The Observer‎^[1], archived from the original on 21 January 2020:

     There is a difference between bookmaking, an entirely respectable profession, and fleecing people, which isn’t.

2. (transitive) To cut off the fleece from (a sheep or other animal).

   Synonym: shear

   Hypernym: cut off

   During spring shearing we have to fleece all the sheep in just a few days.

3. (transitive) To cover with, or as if with, wool.

• (con): nickel and dime

• “fleece”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• fleece on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• IPA^(key): /ˈfliːsi/, [ˈfliːs̠i]
• IPA^(key): /ˈfliːs/, [ˈfliːs̠] (often in compound terms)
• IPA^(key): /ˈfleːse/, [ˈfle̞ːs̠e̞] (dated)
• Rhymes: -iːsi

fleece

1. (unadapted) alternative form of fliisi (“fleece, fleece coat”)

• As is the case with many loanwords, the inflection of this term is problematic. Kotus recommends using the "nalle" category in writing, as shown above, but in speech the declension usually follows the "risti" category; see the declension table for fliisi.

• “fleece”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[2] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023

fleece

1. alternative form of flees

Borrowed from English fleece.

• IPA^(key): /fliːs/

fleece c

1. polar fleece

• fleece in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• fleece in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)