Also 6–7 fleese, (6 flece, fliese). [f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To strip (a sheep) of the fleece; to clip off or strip the wool from; lit. and fig.
1628. Wither, Brit. Rememb., VIII. 1442.
| A Clergy, that shall more desire to fleece, | |
| Then feed the flock. |
1652. Season. Exp. Netherl., 15. What signified the bleating of such of your Countreymen as they daily fleec’d?
1708. Ozell, trans. Boileau’s Lutrin, v. 87.
| For Thee the Hind Sweats at his drudging Plough; | |
| For Thee his Flocks are fleec’d, his Meadows grow. |
1885. Pall Mall G., 6 Nov., 1/1. The impulsive eagerness of some owners to fleece their sheep rather more often than is good for them.
b. transf.
1667. Waterhouse, Fire Lond., 171. Thrifty Oaks, though fleeced of under boughs, yet if not headed, may thrive and grow stately timber Trees.
2. To pluck or shear (the wool) from a sheep. Hence fig. to obtain by unjust or unfair means. Also, to take toll of, take pickings from. Now rare.
1537. Hen. VIII., in State Papers, II. 423. A greate sorte of you (We must be plain) desire nothing ells, but to reign in estimacion, and to flece, from tyme to tyme, all that you may catche from Us.
1576. Turberv., Venerie, 198.
| Men which fliese a fee | |
| From euerie widowes flocke: a capon or a chicke. |
1593. Nashe, Four Lett. Confut., Wks. (Grosart), II. 242. In Latin, like a louse, he hath manie legges, many lockes fleec’d from Tullie, to carry away and cloathe a little body of matter, but yet hee moues but slowly, is apparaild verie poorely.
1605. Verstegan, Dec. Intell., v. (1628), 115. By fleesing from each of these two countrys a parte, that is to say, a parte from England; and a part from Scotland, as Galloway from the one, and Westmerland from the other.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, V. xiv. (1614), 519. Their wealth and substance being euery where so fleeced, that they came into Syria, much lessened in numbers, in estate miserable and beggerly.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes, iv. (1858), 293. Hungry fierce barons, not so much as able to form any arrangement with each other how to divide what they fleeced from these poor drudges.
absol. 1593. Nashe, Christ’s Teares, Wks. (Grosart), IV. 158. Let not the Sheep iudge their sheepeheard, because the scholler is not aboue his Maister, much lesse are they to fleece or pluck from their Maister or Sheepheard: to shaue or to pelt him to the bare-bones, to whom (for feeding them) they should offer vppe theyr fleeces.
1642. Rogers, Naaman, 317. Fleece not from God.
3. To strip (a person, city, country, etc.) of money, property, etc., as a sheep is stripped of its fleece; to make (any one) pay to the uttermost; to exact money from, or make exacting charges upon; to plunder, rob heartlessly; to victimize. Also with of.
1577–87. Holinshed, Chron., III. 855/2. The cardinall knowing he was well prouided of monie, sought occasion to fleece him of part thereof.
1601. F. Godwin, Bps. of Eng., 359 Alfred … determined at his departure [from York] to fleece it, and then to foyst in some simple fellow into that roome, such a one as might seeme likely to swallow his gudgyn quietly.
1616. R. C., Times’ Whistle, vi. 2717.
| Thus with her sister, such another piece, | |
| Many a gallant of his golde they fleece. |
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 584. His father lov’d him so dearly, that he fleec’d the Church of Hereford to leave him an estate.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills (1872), V. 99.
| When Landlords love Taxes, and Soldiers love Peace: | |
| And Lawyers forget a rich Client to Fleece: | |
| When an old Face shall please as well as a new, | |
| Wives, Husbands, and Lovers will ever be true. |
1772. Goldsm., She Stoops to Conquer, II. Wks. (Globe), 650/2. In good inns you pay dearly for luxuries; in bad inns you are fleeced and starved.
1818. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. V. iv. 444. The Governor and Council alleged that they were led on by that friend and ally from one step to another, without knowing where to stop, and without being able to make those reservations in favour of the Company, which the interests of the Company appeared to require. In this manner had Tanjore been humbled and fleeced.
1854. Hawthorne, Eng. Note-bks. (1883), I. 463. I wish, instead of sixpence, I had given the poor family ten shillings, and denied it to a begging subscriptionist, who has just fleeced me to that amount.
1866. R. M. Ballantyne, Shifting Winds, xxvii. (1881), 310. It was a low public-house in one of the dirtiest localities of the town,—a place to which seamen were usually tempted when they came off a voyage, and where they were soon fleeced of all their hardly-earned money.
absol. c. 1572. Gascoigne, Fruites Warre, xcv. 1.
| For I haue seene full many a Flushyng fraye, | |
| And fleest in Flaunders eke among the rest, | |
| The bragge of Bruges, where was I that daye? | |
| Before the walles good sir as brave as best. |
4. a. To overspread as with a fleece. b. To dapple or fleck with fleece-like masses.
1730–46. Thomson, Autumn, 958.
| Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm | |
| Fleeces unbounded ether: whose least wave | |
| Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn | |
| The gentle current. | |
| Ibid. (1748), Cast. Indol., I. 394. | |
| Not Titian’s pencil e’er could so array, | |
| So fleece with clouds, the pure etherial space. |
1799. Wordsw., Nutting.
| And—with my cheek on one of those green stones | |
| That, fleeced with moss, under the shady trees, | |
| Lay round me, scattered like a flock of sheep. |
1855. Beecher, Star Papers, xxxii. (1873), 349. The trees are dressed with snow. The long arms of evergreens bend with its weight; the rails are doubled, and every post wears a virgin crown. The well-sweep, the bucket, the well-curb are fleeced over.
1888. Shairp, in Knight, Shairp & Friends, 87. The sky was bright blue, fleeced with whitest clouds.
Hence Fleeced ppl. a.1
a. 1800. Cowper, trans. Andreini’s Adam, Wks. 1835–7, X. 327.
| This clothing Adam with the lifeless skins | |
| Of fleeced animals to us imports, | |
| That as with dying beast | |
| The body, soul, and spirit, also die. |
1864. H. Spencer, Illust. Univ. Progr., 99. If we count up the robbed tradesmen, the stinted governesses, the ill-educated children, the fleeced relatives, who have to suffer from it.
