1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. Fleece, to Rob, Plunder, or strip.
1703. Mrs. Centlivre, Beau’s Duel, ii., 2. Had a fleece at his purse.
2. (venery).—The female pubic hair. Fr. toison (Baudelaire); It., barbiglioni (Florio). For foreign synonyms, see Mott.
English Synonyms.—Banner (Durfey); bandoliers (old); beard; bearskin; belly-bristles; belly-thicket; belly-whiskers; Boskage of Venus; broom; brush; bush; cat-skin; clover-field; cunny-skin (Durfey); Cupid’s Arbour; cunt-curtain; damber-, dilberry-, gooseberry-, furze-, quim-, or whin-bush; down; Downshire; front-doormat; feather (Prior and Moore); fluff; forest (Donne); fud (Burns); fur; fur-below (old catch); ‘grove of eglantine’ (Carew); hedge on [[19]]the dyke; lower-wig (Burton); moss; mott-carpet; mustard-and-cress; nether eye-brow (or -lashes); nether-whiskers; parsley (Durfey); plush; quim-whiskers; quim-wig; scut (Shakspeare); shaving-brush (cf., Lather); scrubbing-brush; shrubbery; sporran; stubble (see Pointer); sweet-briar; thatch; tail-feathers; ‘toupee’; ‘tufted honours’; twat-rug.
Verb (now recognised).—To cheat; to shear or be shorn (as a sheep).
1593. Nashe, Christ’s Teares, in wks. (Grosart) IV. 140. Tell me (almost) what gentleman hath been cast away at sea, or disasterly souldiourizd it by lande, but they (usurers) have enforst him thereunto by their fleecing.
1598. Shakspeare, I King Henry IV., ii., 2. Down with them: fleece them!
1620. Dekker, His Dreame, in wks. (Grosart) III. 52. Catchpolles, and varlets, who did poore men fleece (To their undoing) for a twelve-peny peece.
1712. Arbuthnot, Hist. of John Bull, pt. IV., ch. ii. When a poor man has almost undone himself for thy sake, thou art for fleecing him.
1822. Scott, Fort. of Nigel, ch. xxiii. He is now squeezed and fleeced by them on every pretence.