Search the Dictionary

rn from a sheep, or animal, at one time. Who shore me Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece. Milton.

Furnished with a fleece; as, a sheep is well fleeced. Spenser.

Without a fleece.

One who fleeces or strips unjustly, especially by trickery or fraund. Prynne.

ship which carried Jason and his fifty-four companions to Colchis, in quest of the Golden Fleece.

of the legendary Greek heroes who sailed with Jason, in the Argo, in quest of the Golden Fleece.

ld (Bidens) and its achenes, which are armed with barbed awns, and adhere to clothing and fleeces with unpleasant tenacity.

ffort. What conatus could give prickles to the porcupine or hedgehog, or to the sheep its fleece Paley.

A keeper of a low lodging house where sailors and emigrants are entrapped and fleeced.

Covered with, made of, or resembling, a fleece. "Fleecy flocks." Prior.

called the royal eagle; the young in the second year is the ring-tailed eagle. -- Golden fleece. (a) (Mythol.) The fleece of gold fabled to have been taken from the ram that bore Phryxus through the air to Colchis, and in quest of which Jason undertook the Argonautic expedition. (b) (Her.) An order of knighthood insti…

Infolded; entangled; complicated; involved. [Obs.] Milton. In his woolly fleece I cling implicit. Pope.

a field impurpled with blood. Impurpled with celestial roses, smiled. Milton. The silken fleece impurpled for the loom. Pope.

To lay together one over another, as fleeces or slivers for further working. To lap boards, shingles, etc., to lay one partly over another. -- To lap timbers, to unite them in such a way as to preserve the same breadth and depth throughout, as by scarfing. Weale.

To pluck; to fleece; to swindle by tricks in gambling. [Slang] Smart. He's pigeoned and undone. Observer.

ard the sea. Donne. Two still clouds . . . sparkled on their seaward edges like a frosted fleece. G. W. Cable.

To strip; to plunder; to fleece. [Colloq.] To shave a note, to buy it at a discount greater than the legal rate of interest, or to deduct in discounting it more than the legal rate allows. [Cant, U.S.]

One who fleeces; a pillager; a plunderer. By these shavers the Turks were stripped. Knolles.

s or a similar instrument; to cut off; to clip (something) from a surface; as, to shear a fleece. Before the golden tresses . . . were shorn away. Shak.

The skin of a sheen after the fleece is shorn off, as distinct from the morling, or skin taken from the dead sheep; also, a sheep of the first year's shearing. [Prov. Eng.]