Wool.

Dyed in the wool. A hearty good fellow. Cloth which is wool-dyed (not piece-dyed), is true throughout “and will wash.”

No wool is so white that a dyer cannot blacken it. No one is so free from faults that slander can find nothing to say against him; no book is so perfect as to be free from adverse criticism.

“Maister Mainwaring’s much abuzed,

Most grievously for things accused,

And all the dowlish [devilish] pack;

Eʹen let mun all their poison spit,

My lord, there is no wooll zo whit

That dyers canʹt make black.

Peter Pindar: Middlesex Election, letter iii.

· ·

Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.