Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A coarse, woven fabric of wool and cotton or of wool and linen.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A coarse and stout material of which the warp is linen and the woof woolen.
- n. A similar material into which cotton enters either with or without linen. The attempt has been made to reserve the word linsey for a mixture of linen and wool and woolsey for a mixture of cotton and wool. The compound term would then signify a stuff made of all three materials in certain proportions.
- n. Inferior fabrics of doubtful or uncertain materials: a term of depreciation.
- n. Anything unsuitably mixed; a farrago of nonsense; jargon; gibberish.
- Made of linen and wool mixed.
- Of different and unsuitable parts; neither one thing nor another; ill-assorted.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Cloth made of linen and wool, mixed.
- n. obsolete Jargon.
- adj. Made of linen and wool; hence, of different and unsuitable parts; mean.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a rough fabric of linen warp and wool or cotton woof
Etymologies
- Diminutive of linen and wool. See -y, -ey. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English linsiwolsie : alteration of linen, linen; see linen + wolle, wool; see wool. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“By “Indian dress” he meant costume common to whites as well as Indians in the west: moccasins, leggings, breechclout, and a hunting shirt, a knee-length smock of linen, wool, or linsey-woolsey, drab and durable.”
“Other textiles boast names utterly mysterious to us, opening up a lost world of camblet and fustian, susy and cherryderry, calimanco and linsey-woolsey.”
“*Some old timers add linsey-woolsey or cotton britches winter as the last one, meaning the day you can stop wearing the long underwear.”
“I had put on my linsey-woolsey dress, as the roads might at times be dusty and the few articles I needed made only a small bundle.”
“She hid the papers for General Washington under the bodice of her linsey-woolsey dress, and fastened her neckerchief over the bodice.”
“The lady-mother still distributeth tracts, and knitteth Berlin linsey-woolsey.”
“May be, an old silk gown, and a linsey-woolsey petticoat, and the like.”
“Last and chief, while literature, gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a fraction of the life of man, talk goes fancy free and may call a spade a spade.”
“SIR, — Yours received, and am surprized you should use me in this manner, as have never seen any of your cash, unless for one linsey-woolsey coat, and your bill now is upwards of L150.”
“But what linsey-woolsey hast thou to speak to us again?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘linsey-woolsey’.
-
phrontistery - l
from phrontistery.info
labarum, labefactation, labeorphily, labidometer, labile, lability, labiomancy, labret, labrose, labtebricole, lac, laccolith and 496 more...
-
words that I don't even imagine the m...
abishag, bellibone, cattywampus, dike-jumper, eupeptic, frumious, gazabo, hackeneyed, iatronudic, kickshaw, linsey-woolsey, maelcryptovestime... and 10 more...
-
♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
-
Is it morning yet?
coterie, lexeme, counterbalance, forthright, pigtail, ponytail, french-braid, barrette, listless, counsel, sitting duck, dead duck and 268 more...
-
billfence's Words
quotidian, flux, sawbuck, horsefeathers, chalcedony, harp, no, fox, tennis, badminton, flue, charm and 186 more...
-
Words Covered in Faery Dust (L)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
labyrinth, lace, lad, lady fingers, lagoon, lamb, lament, lammas, lantern, larkspur, lass, lauds and 92 more...
-
huck finnian
ain't, stretchers, without, sivilize, hogshead, victuals, bulrushers, tolerable, goggles, middling, reckoned, who-whooing and 287 more...
-
sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
-
looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1408 more...
-
bluemartian's Words
spruiker, adytum, ruminate, exedra, moonglade, spindrift, syzygy, glissade, skysill, pellucid, aquarelle, tatterdemalion and 108 more...
-
heather's Words
kleptocracy, aberrant, tawdry, insipid, noggin, obfuscate, dream, esoteric, hijinks, mischevious, nefarious, rapscallion and 184 more...
-
Hyphenated Actual Words
These kind of stun me whenever I see them. Language is just so cool.
chuck-will's-widow, will-o-the-wisp, saw-whet, topsy-turvy, linsey-woolsey, ne'er-do-well, gung-ho, so-so, cul-de-sac, fleur-de-lys, service-berry, major-domo and 33 more...
-
fou
riant, revenant, djinn, orphic, linsey-woolsey, nadir, insouciant, infidel, pallor, vitreous, lucent, prosaic and 5 more...
-
OED Wanderings
biopoesis, clat-fart, linsey-woolsey, rannygazoo, schmegeggy
-
Fig-leaves.
Words that originated from clothing-related metaphors. All words shamelessly stolen from this week's Wordsmith.
Tweets
Looking for tweets for linsey-woolsey.

Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.