woolly
Americanadjective
-
woollier,
comparative
-
woolliest
superlative
-
consisting of wool.
a woolly fleece.
-
resembling wool in texture or appearance.
woolly hair.
-
clothed or covered with wool or something resembling it.
a woolly caterpillar.
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Botany. covered with a pubescence of long, soft hairs resembling wool.
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like the rough, vigorous atmosphere of the early West in America.
wild and woolly.
-
fuzzy; unclear; disorganized.
woolly thinking.
noun
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woollies
plural
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Western U.S. a wool-bearing animal; sheep.
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Usually woollies. a knitted undergarment of wool or other fiber.
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any woolen garment, as a sweater.
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Dialect. a dust ball.
adjective
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consisting of, resembling, or having the nature of wool
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covered or clothed in wool or something resembling it
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lacking clarity or substance
woolly thinking
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botany covered with long soft whitish hairs
woolly stems
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recalling the rough and lawless period of the early West of America (esp in the phrase wild and woolly )
noun
-
(often plural) a garment, such as a sweater, made of wool or something similar
-
(usually plural) an informal word for sheep
Regionalisms
See dust ball.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of woolly
Explanation
If something is woolly, it's covered in (or made of) soft, curly fur. Don't forget to wear your woolly hat — it's cold out there! You can use this adjective for anything made from wool, like your favorite woolly sweater or the woolly socks your grandma knits. It's also useful for things that look or feel like a sheep's woolly coat: "Look at those strange, woolly clouds!" "He shaved his woolly beard off!" Informally, it can be a great way to describe confusion or befuddlement, like the woolly thoughts that go through your mind when you're absolutely exhausted.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
On the Northwest Coast of North America, for instance, some Indigenous communities bred small dogs with woolly coats specifically for their hair.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
Wild Futures said the sanctuary began when it started rescuing woolly monkeys from the pet trade.
From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026
True or, most likely, false, those woolly claims and epic tales of derring-do aren’t the weirdest thing about Marx.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 19, 2026
The islands’ extreme deference to animals—many of which only exist here—was codified into law in 2022 in a landmark case involving a woolly monkey named Estrellita.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
Mama was wrestling that hide out of the stream now, where it had been soaking for days and nights, gathering up its scummy, woolly slime.
From "The Birchbark House" by Louise Erdrich
Vampyrum bats prey mostly on birds they find by smell, whereas the woollies swoop down on rodents they hear rustling on the forest floor.
From Science Magazine ● Oct. 11, 2023
Easter marks the moment when shoppers' thoughts are supposed to switch from warming casseroles and winter woollies to barbecues, pelargoniums and garden projects.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 31, 2013
Bassett – an actress who grows in every play – shoves her face between dire woollies like a feral hedgehog.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 11, 2012
Timesman Frank Kluckholn, guessing that an invasion of Norway and an offensive against the Germans in north Russia was in the offing, outfitted himself with woollies and a heavy overcoat.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is possible to get the cooties out of these garments much easier than out of the thick woollies.
From A Yankee in the Trenches by Robert Derby Holmes
Mr. Buck — who looks every bit the burl dealer, with his wool cap and even woollier beard — bought half a million pounds of redwood burls last year and is a presence on eBay.
From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 2014
By contrast, the BOA likes to speak of fourth in the medal table as an "aspiration", preferring instead to focus on the woollier goal of "more medals in more sports than for over a century".
From The Guardian ● Jun. 21, 2012
He often deploys the saxophones in a braided tandem, before giving each a chance to stretch out: Mr. Cheek with his streamlined logic, Mr. Malaby with his woollier line of attack.
From New York Times ● May 16, 2010
The wilder and woollier it was, the better.
From Time Magazine Archive
The scene of this thrilling anecdote is laid in the Far West, when it was much wilder and woollier than it is at present.
From Bert Wilson's Fadeaway Ball by J. W. Duffield
And amid some of the woolliest spring weather in recent memory — drought, sleet, hard freezes, heat waves — my new native plantings are clambering out of the wood chips.
From New York Times ● May 26, 2010
And he will surely deserve that woolliest of all peace prizes, the Nobel.
From Time Magazine Archive
They are too clearly shadowed by death, even in their woolliest, most kittenish moments, to be cute, and they are too seriously worried about the very danger of self-love to be true egotists.
From Time Magazine Archive
Friday was the day to beat all days, the wildest and woolliest in the market's history.
From Time Magazine Archive
They were, as a matter of fact, excellent stockings of the heaviest, woolliest kind, and Whitman had bought them a year and a half ago in Scotland, whither he had gone after his wife's death.
From Tutors' Lane by W. S. (Wilmarth Sheldon) Lewis
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