linsey-woolsey

American  

[lin-zee-wool-zee] / ˈlɪn ziˈwʊl zi /

noun

plural

linsey-woolseys

1. a coarse fabric woven from linen warp, or sometimes cotton, and coarse wool filling.

2. a garment made from this.

3. Archaic. any mixture that is incongruous or of poor quality; jumble.

   That last speech was a linsey-woolsey of stale platitudes.

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linsey-woolsey British  

/ ˈlɪnzɪˈwʊlzɪ /

noun

1. a thin rough fabric of linen warp and coarse wool or cotton filling

2. a strange nonsensical mixture or confusion

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Etymology

Origin of linsey-woolsey

1425–75; late Middle English lynsy wolsye literally, linen cloth, wool cloth, equivalent to lyn ( Old English līn; see linen) + -sy, variant of say cloth (< Old French saie; akin to Medieval Latin sagia kind of weave, Latin sagum cloak) + wol wool + -sye, variant of say

Example Sentences

Hannah Duston is not the heroic protector of white womanhood and the family but the great castrating mother of all men�a Mary Worth in linsey-woolsey.

From Time Magazine Archive

Although he once taught public speaking, he is only a middling-fair speaker�a quiet man who hides a sharp intellect under the linsey-woolsey coat of an upstate countryman.

From Time Magazine Archive

They talk of the wives of pioneers making linsey-woolsey dresses and men chopping down trees, but they omit things like the Monroe Doctrine.

From Time Magazine Archive

The linsey-woolsey costumes looked as if they had just come out of attic trunks.

From Time Magazine Archive

Those skimpy sleeves did not even cover her elbows, and the scratchy linsey-woolsey cloth kept her thin shoulders constantly twitching.

From "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare