ˈwoolly-ˈheaded, a.
(stress variable)
Having a woolly head: a. in specific names of plants; b. Woolly-haired; c. fig. Dull-witted.
| a. 1650 [W. Howe] Phytol. Brit. 22 Carduus eriocephalus..Wolly-headed Thistle. 1796 Withering Brit. Plants (ed. 3) III. 701 Carduus eriophorus..Woolly-headed Thistle. 1857 Anne Pratt Flower. Pl. III. 237 Cnicus eriophorus..(Woolly-headed Plume-thistle). 1889 J. H. Maiden Usef. Pl. Australia 72 Andropogon bombycinus... ‘Woolly-headed Grass.’ |
| b. 1708 Brit. Apollo No. 5. 2/1 The Blacks in Guinea are Woolly-headed. 1813 Prichard Phys. Hist. Man vi. §6. 307 Most of them resembled the woolly-headed Papuas. 1877 A. B. Edwards Up Nile xvi. 435 Abyssinians and Nubians,..flat-nosed, and wooly-headed. |
| c. 1883 R. Broughton Belinda iv. iv, She has taken..the Borrowdale road, walks along it for some distance confused and woolly-headed. 1883 Harper's Mag. Oct. 708/2 This, too, not by silly, woolly-headed people, but by practical, hard-headed men of business. |