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.
-
Botany. covered with a pubescence of long, soft hairs resembling wool.
-
like the rough, vigorous atmosphere of the early West in America.
wild and woolly.
-
fuzzy; unclear; disorganized.
woolly thinking.
noun
-
woollies
plural
-
Western U.S. a wool-bearing animal; sheep.
-
Usually woollies. a knitted undergarment of wool or other fiber.
-
any woolen garment, as a sweater.
-
Dialect. a dust ball.
adjective
-
consisting of, resembling, or having the nature of wool
-
covered or clothed in wool or something resembling it
-
lacking clarity or substance
woolly thinking
-
botany covered with long soft whitish hairs
woolly stems
-
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
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
Gnawing, almost unbearable heartbreak acts as the catalyst for a layered analysis of the ways humans — or, in the case of “The Sheep Detectives,” humans and their woolly friends — ache to forget.
From Salon ● May 25, 2026
It’s hard to imagine an audience resisting the temptation to have the enigma central to the play’s meaning clarified, given its prominence in the plot and the drama’s woolly elusiveness.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 21, 2026
He hands me a tracksuit, underwear, lace-up trainers, a warm quilted jacket, a woolly hat.
From "Without Refuge" by Jane Mitchell
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
They didn't even look that thrilling; ordinary jackets and woollies, hair a moderate length, Mick Jagger had a fairly chubby face and his V-necked leather jerkin wasn't very hip.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 26, 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
The heating oil run-up spurs sales of wood and woollies, and budget worries Our Lady of Pity, a Roman Catholic church in North Cambridge, Mass., had never before seemed so aptly named.
From Time Magazine Archive
The latter could but confirm what Bud had seen and then, in turn, the other three had a look through the telescope, which brought the details of the oncoming herd of "woollies" startlingly near.
From The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek or Fighting the Sheep Herders by Howard L. (Howard Livingston) Hastings
Upon beginning “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild,” the sixth feature in the animation franchise that grows woollier by the movie, you sense something amiss.
From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2022
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
Among the woollier samples: Q. How do you make an elephant float?
From Time Magazine Archive
The woolly plush hat shows no change either, except that if anything it is slightly woollier in the Alps than among us.
From Europe Revised by Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury) Cobb
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
The players enunciate all too perfectly some of the woolliest period dialogue of recent seasons.
From Time Magazine Archive
And he will surely deserve that woolliest of all peace prizes, the Nobel.
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
And yet it is history that the old Territory of Arizona in days gone by was the "wildest and woolliest" of all the West, as any old settler will testify.
From Arizona's Yesterday Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer by John H. (John Henry) Cady
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
