Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Fleece

Fleece (flēs) , noun

[Old English flees, Anglo-Saxon fleós; akin to Dutch flies, vlies.]

1.
The entire coat of wool that covers a sheep or other similar animal; also, the quantity shorn from a sheep, or animal, at one time.
Who shore me Like a tame wether, all my precious fleece. — Milton
2.
Any soft woolly covering resembling a fleece.
3.
(Manufacturing) The fine web of cotton or wool removed by the doffing knife from the cylinder of a carding machine.
Collocations (2)
Fleece wool , wool shorn from the sheep.
Golden fleece , See under Golden.

Fleece , transitive verb

1.
To deprive of a fleece, or natural covering of wool.
2.
To strip of money or other property unjustly, especially by trickery or fraud; to bring to straits by oppressions and exactions.
Whilst pope and prince shared the wool betwixt them, the people were finely fleeced. — Fuller
3.
To spread over as with wool. [Rare] — Thomson