quword 趣词
Word Origins Dictionary
- fleece




- fleece: [OE] Fleece comes from a prehistoric Germanic *flūsaz. This probably goes back to an Indo-European *plus-, which also produced Latin plūma ‘down’, later ‘feathers’, and Lithuanian plunksna ‘feather’. The metaphorical sense of the verb, ‘swindle’, developed in the 16th century from the literal ‘remove the fleece from’.
=> plume - fleece (v.)




- 1530s in the literal sense of "to strip (a sheep) of fleece," from fleece (n.). From 1570s in the figurative meaning "to cheat, swindle, strip of money." Related: Fleeced; fleecer; fleecing.
- fleece (n.)




- "wool coat of a sheep," Old English fleos, flies "fleece, wool, fur, sealskin," from West Germanic *flusaz (cognates: Middle Dutch vluus, Dutch vlies, Middle High German vlius, German Vlies), which is of uncertain origin; probably from PIE *pleus- "to pluck," also "a feather, fleece" (cognates: Latin pluma "feather, down," Lithuanian plunksna "feather").