a. Also 6 fleesie, flycesie, 7 fleecie. [f. FLEECE sb. + -Y1.]

1

  1.  Covered with a fleece or with wool; fleeced, wool-bearing. Fleecy star = Aries.

2

1590.  Spenser, F. Q., III. vi. 15.

        And eke the gentle shepheard swaynes, which sat
Keeping their fleecie flockes, as they were hyred,
She sweetly heard complaine.

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1611.  Drayton, Poly-olb., xiv. 263.

        And of the fleecie face, the flanke doth nothing lack,
But euery-where is stor’d; the belly, as the back.

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1667.  Milton, P. L., III. 558.

                To the fleecie Starr that bears
Andromeda farr off Atlantick Seas.

5

1725.  Pope, Odyss., IX. 529.

        And first with stately step at evening hour
Thy fleecy fellows usher to their bower.

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1847.  J. Wilson, Chr. North (1857), I. 139. You purchase a collie, but he compromises the affair with the fleecy nation, and contents himself with barking all night long at the moon, if there happen to be one—if not, at the firmament of his kennel.

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  b.  Of a manufactured article: Having a fleece-like nap.

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1790.  W. Buchan (title), Letter to the Patentee, concerning the Medical Properties of the Fleecy Hosiery.

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1881.  Rita, My Lady Coquette, iv. The girl looks and longs—looks again, and then snatches up a white thick fleecy shawl from a stand close by and steps forth, alone and unseen, into the calm, still, moon-lit grounds.

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  fig.  1826.  Hood, Irish Schoolm., ix.

        Thence further down the native red prevails,
Of his own naked fleecy hosierie.

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  2.  Consisting of or derived from fleeces, woolly.

12

1567.  Drant, Horace’ Epist., xiii. E iv. Or drunken Pyrrhe beares her wool her flycesie filched gaine.

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1634.  Milton, Comus, 504.

                  Not all the fleecy wealth
That doth enrich these Downs, is worth a thought
To this my errand, and the care it brought.

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1638.  Cowley, Love’s Riddle, ii.

        The gentle Lambs and Sheep his Loyal Subjects,
Which every Year pay him their fleecy Tribute.

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1791.  Cowper, Odyss., XVI. 39.

        While on the variegated seats she spread
Their fleecy covering.

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  3.  Resembling a fleece in color or conformation; woolly. Of the sky: Covered or flecked with fleece-like clouds.

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1632.  Milton, Penseroso, 71.

        And oft, as if her head shw bow’d,
Stooping through a fleecy cloud.

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1697.  Dryden, Virg. Georg., I. 417.

        Then, when the Fleecy Skies new cloath the Wood,
And cakes of rustling Ice come rolling down the Flood.
    Ibid. (1700), Fables, Pythag. Philos., 89.
While he discours’d of Heav’ns mysterious Laws,
The World’s Original, and Nature’s Cause;
And what was God, and why the fleecy Snows
In Silence fell, and rattling Winds arose.

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1788.  Cowper, Negro’s Compl., 13.

        Fleecy locks and black complexion
  Cannot forfeit Nature’s claim;
Skins may differ, but affection
  Dwells in white and black the same.

20

1839.  Longf., Wreck Hesp., xviii.

        She struck where the white and fleecy waves
    Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
    Like the horns of an angry bull.

21

1873.  G. C. Davies, Mount. & Mere, xiii. 104. You see a small meadow bright with flowers, a picturesque farm and mill, and then the hill side, and, beyond and above, the bright, fleecy blue.

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  4.  ellipt. quasi-sb. (see quot.)

23

1855.  H. Clarke, Dict., Fleecy, woolly.

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1882.  Caulfeild & Saward, Dict. Needlework, Fleecy.—Sheep’s wool prepared in loose threads for Darning and Knitting.

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  5.  Comb., as fleecy-looking, -winged adjs.

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1803.  Edin. Rev., II. 379. The smoke of the habitations has been condensed by the weight of the night-air, and has mingled with the thick and fleecy-looking fog rising from innumerable glades.

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1822.  Shelley, Chas. I., iv. 11.

        Mark too that flock of fleecy-wingèd clouds
Sailing athwart St. Margaret’s.

28

  Hence Fleecily adv., in a fleecy manner.

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1875.  Anderida, III. vi. 110. Till from rock with plumes of fern Shivering, fleecily falls the burn, And the drops to drops return.

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