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PlainSpell

fleece

/fliːs/noun, verb

fleece is spelled F-L-E-E-C-E: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 2.3 times per million words in written English, the 18,064th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, fleece means “Hair or wool of a sheep or similar animal” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of fleece is fleeces.

How many letters and syllables are in fleece?

Letters6: F-L-E-E-C-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing2.3 times per million words; the 18,064th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is fleece?

Fleece appears 2.3 times per million words in written English, the 18,064th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce fleece?

  • /fliːs/
  • British /flɪjs/

Fleece has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-fleece.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of fleece

  • fleeces plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • fleecing participle, present
  • fleeced participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does fleece mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    Hair or wool of a sheep or similar animal.

  2. 2

    Insulating skin with the wool attached.

  3. 3

    A textile similar to velvet, but with a longer pile that gives it a softness and a higher sheen.

  4. 4

    An insulating wooly jacket.

  5. 5

    Mat or felts composed of fibers, sometimes used as a membrane backer.

  6. 6

    Any soft woolly covering resembling a fleece.

  7. 7

    The fine web of cotton or wool removed by the doffing knife from the cylinder of a carding machine.

verb

  1. 1

    informalTo con or trick (someone) out of money.

  2. 2

    To cut off the fleece from (a sheep or other animal).

    During spring shearing we have to fleece all the sheep in just a few days.

  3. 3

    To cover with, or as if with, wool.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Fleece in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchtoison (hair or wool of a sheep), molleton, polaire (textile), dévaliser, dépouiller, arnaquer (to con or trick someone out of money)
GermanVlies (hair or wool of a sheep), Fleece (textile), abziehen, ausnehmen (to con or trick someone out of money), Fell (insulating skin with the wool attached), Fleecejacke (insulating woolly jacket)
Portuguesetosão (hair or wool of a sheep), pelego (insulating skin with the wool attached)
Spanishvellón, vellocino, lana, toisón (hair or wool of a sheep), esquilmar (to con or trick someone out of money), piel (insulating skin with the wool attached)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does fleece come from?

From Middle English fles, flees, flese, from Old English flēos, flīes, flȳs, from Proto-West Germanic *fleus.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

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