[f. FULL v.3 + -ING1.]
1. The process of cleansing and thickening cloth by beating and washing; also called milling.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 348/2. This trade of Milling or thickning Cloth is termed Fulling.
1791. Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, I. I. II. i. 127. Mr. Monge has explained … the effects of fulling, by the external conformation of the wool and hair of animals.
1812. Southey, in Quarterly Review, VII. 63. In the Feroe Isles the women perform the work of fulling by treading the cloth in a tub; in this manner a girl can full twenty pair of hose in four or five hours.
transf. 1894. Gould, Illustr. Dict. Med., Fulling, in massage, a valuable method of kneading, named from the motion used by fullers in rubbing linen between their hands.
2. attrib. as fulling-boy, -hammer, † -mace, -stone; † fulling-clay, † -earth = fuller’s earth; fulling-mill, a mill in which cloth is fulled or milled by being beaten with wooden mallets, which are let fall upon it (or in modern use, by being pressed between rollers) and cleansed with soap or fuller’s earth; † fulling-stocks, wooden mallets worked by machinery, used for fulling cloth.
1677. Yarranton, Eng. Improv., 109. If I had not been an old Clothier, and a *Fulling-Boy when I was young, I could not have learnt it out.
1688. Lond. Gaz., No. 2338/1. We do … streightly Charge … that no manner of … *Fulling Clay, be … exported. Ibid. (1720), No. 5853/1. Any Fuller’s-Earth, or Fulling-Clay.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1684), III. 591. A certain poor man … went to the Sea, minding to have gone into Kent for *Fulling Earth.
1796. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 186. Some fulling Earths, it is said, effervesce slightly with acids.
1712. Motteux, Quixote, III. vi. (1749), I. 160. Let the six *fulling-hammers be transform’d into so many giants.
1612. Shelton, Quixote, III. vii. 175. Without being able to attribute it to the little knowledge of the *fulling Maces or the darkenesse of the night.
1417–18. Abingdon Acc. (Camden), 88, note. The reparacions done this yere at ye *Fullingmilles.
1523. Fitzherb., Surv., 9 b. Fullyngmylnes, sythe mylnes, cutlersmylnes.
1612. in Naworth Househ. Bks., 8. The wholl yeares rent of the fulling mill.
1748. Smollett, Rod. Rand., xvi. (1804), 97. My heart went knock, knock … like a fulling-mill.
1805. Luccock, Nat. Wool, 161. Nor will the cloth, unless the wool of which it is made possess some considerable toughness, endure without injury the violent strokes of the fulling mill.
1876. J. G. Holland, Sevenoaks, i. 2. Below this two or three saw-mills, a grist-mill in daily use, and a fulling-mill—a remnant of the old times when homespun went its pilgrimage to town—to be fulled, colored, and dressed—from all the sparsely settled country around.
1377. *Fullyng-stokkes [see FULL v.3 1].
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., IV. 342/2. The ‘fulling-stocks’ … consist of heavy wooden mallets.
1884. J. Payne, 1000 Nts. & One Nt., VIII. 135. Making the ship fast to one of the *Fulling-Stones.
