wooler

English

Alternative forms

• (slang) woola, woolah

Etymology

From wool +‎ -er.

Noun

wooler (plural woolers)

1. An animal raised for its wool, especially an angora rabbit.
   • 1912, Caroline Lockhart, The Lady Doc, Philadelphia, P.A., London: J. B. Lippincott Company, page 329:

     A big band of bleating sheep on the way to the loading pens at the station blocked her way where she would have crossed the street to Symes's house. She swore in a frenzy of impatience as she waited for them to pass in the cloud of choking dust raised by their tiny, pointed hoofs. ¶ "Way 'round 'em, Shep!" The voice was familiar. "Hullo, Doc!" The Sheep King of Poison Creek waved a grimy, genial hand. ¶ "Hurry your infernal woolers along, can't you?" she yelled in response.

   • 1941 December, Eleanor Hull, “Sky Rabbits Unlimited”, in The American Girl, volume XXIV, number XII, Dayton, O.H.: Girl Scouts, Inc., page 46:

     "Why, what a shame!" Kate cried. "Snow Queen was one of the best woolers. They thought she would surely win at the stock show. They'll have to build that fence higher, won't they?"

   • 1948 September, C. E. Waldner, “Angoras Do Pay Off”, in The Country Guide, volume LXVII, number 9, Winnipeg, MB: The Country Guide Limited, page 35:

     With a cost of $1.00 to $2.00 per rabbit for feed, the profit should be at or near $5.00 per rabbit from good woolers which produce approximately one pound of wool each per year.

   • 1988, John Sandford, Rabbits, Ramsbury Wiltshire: The Crowood Press, →ISBN, page 84:

     Angora wool farmers have always selected their breeding stock on the basis of each rabbit's performance as a wooler — indeed, this has been done to such effect that the wool yield of does has increased probably five-fold in the last 100 years.

   • 2010, Janice Sephton, James Blake, Angora Rabbits & Their Wool, Midhurst, West Sussex: Beech Publishing House, →ISBN, page 112:

     The breeder who sells the rabbits at a very early age could very well be selling excellent woolers or possibly only average producers, only time will tell.

2. Someone who works with wool.
   • 2008, Jess Winfield, My Name Is Will: A Novel of Sex, Drugs, and Shakespeare, New York, N.Y., Boston, M.A.: Twelve, →ISBN, page 71:

     He was fined another twenty pounds for usury after charging a local wooler — a Protestant — twenty pounds for a short-term hundred-pound loan.

   • 2015, Al DeFilippo, Black Country, Palm Beach Gardens, F.L.: Borrowed Light Productions, →ISBN, page 360:

     By six p.m., many of the town's residents have shown up to hear the traveling preacher. Standing in front of nearly seventy-five people, Francis peruses the gathering made up of village woolers, men and women who work sheep's wool for export.

   • 2020, Vesper Stamper, A Cloud of Outrageous Blue, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page 49:

     "See there, men?" spat Lord Geoffrey. "There's justice yet! Reeve Edgar le Sherman, honest and fair," he mocked, "defrauding his own fellows for gain. Funneling my money to a Flemish woolers' uprising! Remember this: anyone who steals from a lord steals bread from your own table. Today you did your duty and caught the thief!"

3. (slang) A marijuana cigarette or cigar laced with crack cocaine.

   Synonyms: wool, woolie

   • 1986 November 15, “Slow Ride”, in Licensed to Ill‎^[1], performed by Beastie Boys:

     Went to the bathroom, rolled myself a wooler

   • 1995, Philippe Bourgois, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, New York, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 112:

     So I tell him, "How do you smoke this? Put it in the pipe; or do you smoke woolas [a crack and marijuana mixture]?" He said, "You got that too?" and I said, "No, I'm just asking." So he left.

   • 1998 July 21, “Me & My Boo”, in Confessions of Fire‎^[2], performed by Cam'ron ft. Charli Baltimore:

     I told her the difference / A wooler from the blunt

   • 2013 October 7, “Suicide”, in My Name Is My Name‎^[3], performed by Pusha T ft. Ab-Liva:

     Designated shooters, turn weed to woolers

   • 2015, Dimas Salaberrios, Street God: The Explosive True Story of a Former Drug Boss on the Run From the Hood--and the Courageous Mission That Drove Him Back, Carol Stream, I.L.: Tyndale Momentum, →ISBN, page 50:

     A typical woolah cost ten dollars, and in search of that high I smoked woolah after woolah.

References

• “wooler”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “wooler”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “wooler”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “wooler”, in The Right Rhymes, launched 2013.

Further reading

• “wooler”, “woolah”, in Urban Dictionary, launched 1999.