fleece
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Hair or wool of a sheep or similar animal.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
fleesIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈflis
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
Hair or wool of a sheep or similar animal
uncountable
Insulating skin with the wool attached
countable
A textile similar to velvet, but with a longer pile that gives it a softness and a higher sheen.
Any soft woolly covering resembling a fleece.
countable
An insulating wooly jacket
The fine web of cotton or wool removed by the doffing knife from the cylinder of a carding machine.
verb
transitive
To cut off the fleece from (a sheep or other animal).
Shear the wool from
transitive
To cover with, or as if with, wool.
Rip off; ask an unreasonable price
transitive
To con or trick (someone) out of money.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Hair or wool of a sheep or similar animal
Used this way, fleece is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use fleece
- “I bought a soft fleece jacket to wear in the colder weather.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Twining perennial vine having racemes of fragrant greenish flowers.
In Greek mythology, a fleece of gold owned by the king of Colchis and guarded in a sacred grove by a dragon.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to cut off the fleece from (a sheep
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.