Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🧥 Soft fabric 💸 To cheat 🐑 Sheep's wool ✂️ To shear wool
to fleece

to fleece

1 4.2
Remove the wool from a sheep
  • verb
  • /flis/
translation icon : esquilar
  • Oh, they already had a perfectly functioning parking lot, no, but they needed anther one, a nicer one, and the were prepared to fleece their flock to get it.

Examples

  • I'm using aspen bedding for now, and will probably not change to fleece.

    Blog text (9)

  • Every day, the sheep, goats, and some cows line up for fleecing, mating, and getting milked.

    Blog text (5)

  • The farmer decided it was time to fleece the sheep before winter arrived.

  • Each spring, they carefully fleece their flock to prepare for the warmer months.

  • To improve the quality of the wool, she plans to fleece the sheep earlier than usual.

Synonyms

to shear
vsto fleece
9 3.5

To cut wool or hair from an animal with large scissors

focuses specifically on removing wool from animals by that cutting method
to wool
vsto fleece
1 8.4

To cut the soft hair from sheep to collect it

specifies removal by shearing rather than general gathering
to fleeche
vsto fleece
  • Archaic
9.9

To cut the wool off a sheep

is the modern standard term rather than the old form

Compounds

Golden Fleece
  • Literature
4 9.9

The golden wool from a ram that Jason and his crew sought in Colchis

China fleece vine
9.9

A climbing plant that grows back every year with twining stems and fragrant green flowers

How Shorn

to fleece
1 4.2
to shear
9 3.5
clip
15 1.3

Surface Forms

fleece infinitive
fleece past
fleece past participle
fleeing present participle
fleeces third person singular

Etymology

Fleece as a verb meaning to shear a sheep comes from the same old word for the sheep's 'wool' and simply means to remove that wool. So to fleece an animal today still literally means to take off its fleece.