vbl. sb. [f. FLEECE v. + -ING1.]
1. The action of the vb. FLEECE.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s Teares, 46 b. Tell me (almost) what Gentleman hath been cast away at sea, or disasterly souldiourizd it by Lande, but they [Vsurers] haue enforst him thereunto by their fleecing.
1641. Milton, Reform., II. 85. It would please the Parliament that they may yet have the whipping, fleecing, and fleaing of us in their diabolical Courts to tear the flesh from our bones.
1783. C. J. Fox, Sp. E. India Bill, 18 Nov., in Sp. (1815), II. 200–1. The poor unhappy natives must undergo a second fleecing for the benefit of the proprietors: so that they were to be robbed first, to enrich their governor, and afterwards they were to be plundered, to furnish means to prevent a discovery of his peculations.
2. concr. A fleecy streak.
1781. S. J. Pratt, Emma Corbett, II. 173. The courted Deity descends in all the benignity of her brightness. She is surrounded with sun-beams softened by tender fleecings of sky which form her chariot.
