fleece
Americannoun
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fleeces
plural
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the coat of wool that covers a sheep or a similar animal.
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the wool shorn from a sheep at one shearing.
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something resembling a fleece.
a fleece of clouds in a blue sky.
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a fabric with a soft, silky pile, used for warmth, as for lining garments.
-
the soft nap or pile of such a fabric.
verb (used with object)
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fleeces,
present (3rd person singular)
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fleeced,
past participle, past
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fleecing
present participle
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to deprive of money or belongings by fraud, hoax, or the like; swindle.
He fleeced the stranger of several dollars.
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to remove the fleece of (a sheep).
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to overspread, as with a fleece; fleck with fleecelike masses.
a host of clouds fleecing the summer sky.
noun
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the coat of wool that covers the body of a sheep or similar animal and consists of a mass of crinkly hairs
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the wool removed from a single sheep
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something resembling a fleece in texture or warmth
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sheepskin or a fabric with soft pile, used as a lining for coats, etc
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a warm polyester fabric with a brushed nap, used for outdoor garments
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a jacket or top made from such a fabric
verb
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to defraud or charge exorbitantly; swindle
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another term for shear
Usage
What does fleece mean? Fleece is the outer coat of wool that covers a sheep, goat, llama, or similar animal, as in Wool made from a sheep’s fleece can be scratchy, but wool from llama’s fleece is soft and buttery. Fleece can also mean the wool collected from these animals or fabric made from it, as in Sheep farmers depend on getting good prices for recently cut fleeces to keep their farms going. Related to these senses, you can use fleece as a verb to mean shearing, or cutting, the wool off a sheep, as in The farmer’s son spent all morning fleecing the flock of sheep. Fleece also refers to fabrics or garments made from the fleece of an animal or a fabric that resembles the texture of a fleece. Coats and jackets made with polyester with a soft, silky pile are commonly referred to as fleeces. Finally, fleece is commonly used to mean cheating or swindling a person out of money, as in I was fleeced out of a hundred dollars this morning by a fake insurance salesman. Example: Children always love touching the soft fleece of the llamas at the petting zoo.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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fleecesimple
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fleecessimple
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have fleecedperfect
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has fleecedperfect
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am fleecingprogressive
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are fleecingprogressive
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is fleecingprogressive
-
have been fleecingperfect progressive
-
has been fleecingperfect progressive
Past
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fleecedsimple
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had fleecedperfect
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was fleecingprogressive
-
were fleecingprogressive
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had been fleecingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of fleece
before 1000; Middle English flees, Old English flēos, flȳs; cognate with Middle Dutch vlies, Middle High German vlius, German Vlies
Explanation
A fleece is a sheep's coat. Or a goat's. Or a yak's. A person's coat can be called a fleece, too, if it comes from a sheep or goat or a yak or even if it just looks like it did. You can also use fleece in an informal way to mean cheating someone. Remember how Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow? Well, it was such a nice, clean fleece that Mary tricked the lamb into trusting her, then robbed him of his fleece and turned it into a bomber jacket and a pair of boots. She totally fleeced him!
Vocabulary lists containing fleece
"The Odyssey," Vocabulary from Part 1 of the epic poem
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Mockingbird
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Hello, Universe
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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:
The Five-Pocket Tote is made from denim and the Hoodie Tote is made from fleece.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
A sheep shearer says a giant fleece removed from a sheep near Spilsby is the largest he has ever seen.
From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2026
You’re not out to fleece anyone with egregiously high commissions or merely befriend another member because you want to flog the latest financial product.
From MarketWatch ● May 29, 2026
In any coziness competition, if such contests exist, fleece is tough to beat.
From Salon ● May 17, 2026
All my life, I’ve lived with sheep, drunk their milk, eaten their meat, washed their fleece, carded their wool.
From "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village" by Laura Amy Schlitz
The fleeces from Williams's farm are taken to a local wool depot in Newtown, where manager Barry Bellis sorts through them by hand.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
Homeowners struggle to get a permit to add a bedroom, and taxpayers can’t get through to the agency that fleeces them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 6, 2026
A federal judge shows how this hospital ‘discount’ fleeces drug makers and patients.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Farmers have vowed to continue burning sheep fleeces in protest over "measly" wool prices.
From BBC ● Feb. 13, 2024
“Down there near the riverbank,” she said, “where the bushes grow thick, are sheep with fleeces of gold. Go fetch me some of their shining wool.”
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
There’s a big industry built around the secondhand market, and if you look in the right places, you can find a good deal without getting fleeced.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026
No revolutionary, Wood writes, “defended with more vehemence common ordinary people against the aristocracy—‘against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and cloathed like swine and hounds.’
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
He called for politicians globally to act to curtail addictive forms of gambling and prevent consumers being "fleeced" during the World Cup.
From BBC ● Jun. 10, 2026
Related: ‘I have lost nearly everything’: My mother’s trustee changed her $1 million will and my attorney fleeced me.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 16, 2026
He met up with his brother Walter in Chicago, where he was fleeced and pickpocketed from the time he hit town till the time he left.
From "The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother" by James McBride
It dug into the fraud that purportedly precedes the fleecing of U.S. antipoverty programs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026
The fleecing of Kevin, who ProPublica agreed to identify by first name only, was a textbook example of pig butchering.
From Salon ● Jun. 26, 2025
Ippei Mizuhara’s fleecing of Shohei Ohtani was straightforward for the most part.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 3, 2024
This revenue share is for all media—not just books—but illustrates the extreme financial incentive prisons have to participate with prison telecom companies in this fleecing of incarcerated people.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2024
“Not suckering me here, are you, Jace? Tell you what, how about fleecing me for one pound?”
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
