Word.ws English Dictionary

wool

UK/wʊl//wʊl/

wool noun: the hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants.

wool: the hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants
Image: Cstaffa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

wool (usually uncountable, plural wools)

  1. (usually) The hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants.
    • The sheep were caught and plucked, because shears had not yet been invented to cut the wool from the sheep's back.2006, Nigel Guy Wilson, Ancient Greece, page 692
  2. (usually) A cloth or yarn made from such hair.
    • 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.2009 January 12, Mireya Navarro, “It May Market Organic Alternatives, but Is Your Cleaner Really Greener?”, in New York Times
  3. (usually) Anything with a fibrous texture like that of sheep's wool.
    • The groundsels have leaves covered in wool for insulation[…1975, Anthony Julian Huxley, Plant and Planet, page 223
  4. (broadly, usually) A dingy white color inspired by the natural shade of wool.
  5. (usually) A fine fiber obtained from the leaves of certain trees, such as firs and pines.
  6. (obsolete, usually) Short, thick hair, especially when crisped or curled.
    • wool of bat and tongue of dogc. 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...
  7. (New Zealand, UK, usually) Yarn, including that made from synthetic fibers.
  8. (derogatory, usually, Liverpool) A woolly back; a resident of a satellite town outside Liverpool, such as St Helens or Warrington. See also Yonner.
  9. (slang, usually) A marijuana cigarette or cigar laced with crack cocaine.
    • The object of your affection is the treetop connection / Where basically you love to smoke your wools1991 March 29, “Slow Down” (0:25 from the start), in One for All, performed by Brand Nubian
    • He rocked Caesar's chains, he pushed Caesar's Range / Smokin' mad wools all day, with Caesar's change2003 June 24, “Sabotage” (0:40 from the start), in The Ownerz, performed by Gang Starr
    Synonyms:
    wooler, woolie

Proper noun capitalized: Wool

Wool

  1. A village and civil parish in Dorset, England, previously in Purbeck district (OS grid ref SY8486).

wool meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

wool in Hindi

cloth or yarn
ऊन ūn
hair of sheep, etc.
ऊन ūn
anything with a texture like that of wool
ऊनी ūnī

wool in Tamil

கம்பளி

wool in Urdu

cloth or yarn
اُون ūn
hair of sheep, etc.
اُون ūn

wool in Bengali

hair of sheep, etc.
ঊণ un, মেষলোম meslōm, উল ul
More languagesFewer languages
wool in Telugu
ఉన్ని unni, బొచ్చు boccu
wool in Malayalam
കമ്പിളി kampiḷi
wool in Kannada
ಉಣ್ಣೆ uṇṇe
wool in Punjabi
ਉੱਨ unna
wool in Gujarati
ઊન ūn
wool in Odia
ଉଲ ula
wool in Sanskrit
ऊर्णा ū́rṇā
wool in Assamese
উণ un
wool in Pashto
وړۍ
wool in Tagalog
lana
wool in Arabic
صُوف ṣūf
wool in Malay
wul, suf
wool in Indonesian
wol
wool in Thai
ผ้าขนสัตว์ pâa-kǒn-sàt, สักหลาด sàk-gà-làat, ขนแกะ kǒn-gɛ̀, ขน kǒn
wool in Vietnamese
len, lông
wool in Myanmar
သိုးမွေး sui:mwe:

Examples of wool in a sentence

  • In order for a suit to be kosher, it cannot contain both wool and linen together.
  • Baa baa black sheep have you any wool? Yes sir, yes sir, Three bags full.
  • Mother couldn’t unravel the ball of wool after the cat had played with it.

All 40 example sentences with wool

Synonyms of wool

Forms of wool

pluralwools

Plural of wool: wools

Origin of wool

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).

Words formed from wool

Phrases with wool

34 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with wool

Questions about wool

What does wool mean?
Wool means the hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants.
What is wool in Hindi?
Wool in Hindi is ऊन (ūn), ऊनी (ūnī). See Wool meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is wool?
Wool can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce wool?
Wool is pronounced /wʊl/ (UK).
What is the plural of wool?
The plural of wool is wools.

Words near wool in the dictionary

  1. wookie
  2. Wookiee
  3. Wookiees
  4. Wookies
  5. wooks
  6. wool
  7. Wool Bay
  8. wool classer
  9. wool classers
  10. wool classing
  11. wool clip

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wool (page history and authors); Wool (page history and authors); wool (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ಉಣ್ಣೆ (Kannada) (page history and authors); ਉੱਨ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); ઊન (Gujarati) (page history and authors); ऊर्णा (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); وړۍ (Pashto) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-wool.ogg.

Cite this entry: “wool.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wool. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.