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Added 9 October 2026

wool

/wʊl/ noun

In Latin: lāna Wiktionary

noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about wool at Wordnik → Where our words come from →

A fabric made from the hair of sheep.
Fiber sheared from animals (such as sheep) and twisted into yarn for weaving.
Outer coat of especially sheep and yaks.

Origin

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, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish ull, Danish uld; 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.

From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)

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