Other forms: wools
Wool is the warm natural material that comes from sheep. Pure wool, a ball of wool, wool socks.
Its fibres are crimped and scaled, which traps air and makes it warm, and it still insulates when wet — the reason it survives in outdoor clothing against every synthetic. It shrinks in hot water because the scales lock. Pull the wool over somebody's eyes means to deceive.
1nounwoolThe fibre that grows on sheep.
“My grandmother knitted me a warm scarf from soft grey wool.”
wool is a material.
Old English wull names the material, from a Germanic root going back to Proto-Indo-European.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂welh₁-
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂
Proto-Germanic
*wullō
Proto-West Germanic
*wullu
Old English
wull
Middle English
wolle
English, today
wool
From Middle English wolle, from Old English wull, from Proto-West Germanic wullu, from Proto-Germanic wullō, from Proto-Indo-European h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂. 2 Cognate with stq Wulle, German Low German Wull, Dutch wol, German Wolle, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish ull, Danish uld; also Welsh gwlân, Latin lāna, Lithuanian vìlna, Russian во́лос, Slovak vlna, Bulgarian влас, Albanian lesh (“wool, hair, fleece”). a doublet of lana.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA