wool

Where “wool” sits in English frequency

Definition

1. 1
   The hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants.
2. 2
   A cloth or yarn made from such hair.
3. 3
   Anything with a fibrous texture like that of sheep's wool.
4. 4
   A fine fiber obtained from the leaves of certain trees, such as firs and pines.
5. 5
   Short, thick hair, especially when crisped or curled.
6. 6
   Yarn, including that made from synthetic fibers.
7. 7
   A woolly back; a resident of a satellite town outside Liverpool, such as St Helens or Warrington. See also Yonner.
8. 8
   A marijuana cigarette or cigar laced with crack cocaine.

Etymology

From Middle English wolle, from Old English wull, from Proto-West Germanic *wullu, from Proto-Germanic *wullō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂. Cognates Cognate with Saterland Frisian Wulle, German Low German Wull, Dutch wol, German Wolle, Norwegian ull; also Welsh gwlân, Latin lāna, Lithuanian vi̇̀lna, Russian во́лос (vólos), Slovak vlna, Bulgarian влас (vlas), Albanian lesh (“wool, hair, fleece”). Doublet of lana. The vowel development u → o → oo is purely graphical. Modern English generally avoids the string ⟨wu⟩ in favour of ⟨wo⟩, and the resulting woll was then altered to wool (as supposedly better representing the pronunciation).

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: owol,wol,wolo,wooll,wwool

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of wool - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.

Frequently Asked Questions