the.com/woolly
Nature's sweater, worn by anything stubborn enough to survive a winter you'd quit.
means Covered in or resembling wool — soft, fuzzy, and fleecy — or, by extension, vague and muddled, as in fuzzy thinking.
from From Old English 'wull,' the word for sheep's fleece, itself from a Germanic root (compare Dutch 'wol' and German 'Wolle') and ultimately a cousin of Latin 'lana' and Sanskrit 'urna,' all tracing back to a Proto-Indo-European word for wool — proof that humans have been naming the fuzzy stuff for a very long time. 'Woolly' simply means 'wool-like,' and the figurative sense of 'unclear' or 'confused' grew naturally from the image of something soft-edged and indistinct, like a thought you can't quite comb straight.
- mammoth tribute
- The woolly mammoth lasted until 1650 BCE on one Arctic island.
- thermal trick
- Wool stays warm even when soaking wet.
- caterpillar forecaster
- Woolly bear caterpillars are folklore weather predictors.
- flame resistant
- Wool naturally self-extinguishes instead of bursting into flame.
- vague twin
- Also means fuzzy thinking, not just fuzzy sheep.
woolly mammoth — extinct ice age elephant with long hair, last population died on wrangel island around 2000 bce
woolly rhinoceros — extinct pleistocene rhino with thick fur, went extinct roughly 14,000 years ago in siberia
woolly adelie penguin — antarctic penguin species pygoscelis adeliae, covered in dense feathers on antarctic coasts