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Wool-gathering. World English Historical Dictionary

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Wool-gathering. World English Historical Dictionary Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Slice Contents Key Bibliographic Record Murray’s New English Dictionary. 1928, rev. 2024. Wool-gathering vbl. sb. and gerund.

1   1.  The action of gathering fragments of wool torn from sheep by bushes, etc.

2 1581.  J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 424 b. Your Diuinitie raungeth very much at randon, as if it were strayed and runnyng in some wildernes a wollgatheryng.

3 1878.  E. Peacock, in Archaeologia, XLVI. 384. Wool-gathering yet goes on in many places even on enclosed lands.

4 1889.  H. Johnston, Chron. Glenbuckie, xxii. 261. I got it by working for it—hard ’oo’-gathering and hard spinning.

5   2.  In fig. phr. to go (run, be) wool-gathering, formerly always a (or † on, † of) wool-gathering: to indulge in wandering fancies or purposeless thinking; to be in a dreamy or absent-minded state: said esp. of ‘the wits,’ etc. Similarly, to send or set (a) wool-gathering.

6 1553.  T. Wilson, Rhet., II. 59. Hackyng & hemmyng as though our wittes and our senses were a woll gatheryng.

7 1577.  trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 652. Their mindes goe a wool-gathering.

8 1579.  Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 42. To busy the wittes of his people, for running a woolgathering.

9 1601.  W. Percy, Cuckqueanes & Cuckolds Errants, IV. i. (Roxb.), 46. My Husband … [had] so drawne mee, after him, on woole-gathering, in search of him, as now you see mee.

10 1607.  R. C[arew], trans. Estienne’s World of Wonders, xxxix. 349. This gentle Frier (whose wit was not gone of wool-gathering).

11 1625.  Bp. Mountagu, App. Cæsar., 23. If you read them, but marked them not, your wits went on wooll-gathering at that instant.

12 1652.  Gaule, Magastrom., 41. He … sends his father-in-law almost a wooll-gathering.

13 1748.  Richardson, Clarissa, VII. 326. That my wits may not be sent a wooll-gathering.

14 1796.  Girlhood of M. J. Holroyd (1896), 386. I suppose you thought my Brains were Wool gathering!

15 1845.  Carlyle, Cromwell (1873), I. i. 7. Sacred Poets have … gone a woolgathering after ‘Ideals’ and suchlike.

16 1890.  J. Hatton, By Order of Czar, II. xii. You are wool-gathering a little, eh?

17   b.  Hence, Indulgence in idle imagining or aimless speculation.

18 1607.  Middleton, Fam. Love, V. iii. Ha’ you summoned your wits from wool-gathering?

19 1824.  Lady Granville, Lett. (1894), I. 279. A great deal of wool-gathering about what it will bring.

20 1859.  Geo. Eliot, Adam Bede, xxvii. There never was such a chap for wool-gathering.

21 1893.  Patmore, Religio Poetæ (1898), 90. The crazy wool-gathering which is ordinarily regarded as thought.

22   So Wool-gathering a., indulging in wandering thoughts or idle fancies.

23 1850.  Mrs. Stowe, in Life (1889), 140. If my wits are somewhat wool-gathering and unsettled.

24 1859.  Geo. Eliot, Adam Bede, i. It was Seth Bede, as was allays a wool-gathering chap.

25 1893.  E. H. Barker, Wand. Southern Waters, 259. At those moments when the wool-gathering mind has to be hurried back and fixed upon the sacredness of the ritual.

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