"more cry than wool" meaning in English

See more cry than wool in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-more cry than wool.ogg [Australia]
Etymology: Derived from the practice of shearing sheep, in which the sheep may "cry" as their wool is removed. The earliest recorded variation appears to be by 15th century English lawyer John Fortescue, who wrote "Moche Crye and no Wull" in De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470), ch. x. Head templates: {{head|en|noun}} more cry than wool
  1. (idiomatic) Dramatic assertions backed by little evidence Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: all cry and no wool Related terms: all bark and no bite, all smoke and no fire, all hat and no cattle
    Sense id: en-more_cry_than_wool-en-noun-Mc9NnGmH Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for more cry than wool meaning in English (2.6kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Derived from the practice of shearing sheep, in which the sheep may \"cry\" as their wool is removed. The earliest recorded variation appears to be by 15th century English lawyer John Fortescue, who wrote \"Moche Crye and no Wull\" in De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470), ch. x.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun"
      },
      "expansion": "more cry than wool",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1747, John Smith, Chronicon Ruſticum Commerciale; or, Memoirs of Wool, &c., London: T. Osborne, page 304",
          "text": "Theſe are the Crimes of which we are guilty, before any Law to prohibit us: it were more allowable to plant Poiſon than to Manufacture with us, and we lie, it ſeems, under ſuch an Obloquy and Clamour, (which, as far as I can judge by your Letter, you alſo liſten to) that, as to import our Cattle to you is a Nuſance, and to export our Wools is Felony ; ſo, by Gradation, to erect here a Manufacture ought to be no leſs than Treaſon. And yet there is more Cry than Wool in all this Matter : For I dare, and do aſſure you, that, modeſtly ſpeaking the whole Quantity of what we work up in Ireland, amounts not to the Half of what any one Clothing-County in England does.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1999 February 26, Bruce M. Selya, “Aguilar-Solis v. INS”, in 1st Cir. 1999, case no. 98-1484",
          "text": "In rebuttal, the petitioner offers more cry than wool. He points first to the vague threats that his family and friends relayed to him during his 1990 return to El Salvador, and speculates that members of the FMLN still sought to harm him at that time. This is unabashed surmise.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Dramatic assertions backed by little evidence"
      ],
      "id": "en-more_cry_than_wool-en-noun-Mc9NnGmH",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Dramatic assertions backed by little evidence"
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "all bark and no bite"
        },
        {
          "word": "all smoke and no fire"
        },
        {
          "word": "all hat and no cattle"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "all cry and no wool"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-more cry than wool.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/17/En-au-more_cry_than_wool.ogg/En-au-more_cry_than_wool.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/En-au-more_cry_than_wool.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "more cry than wool"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Derived from the practice of shearing sheep, in which the sheep may \"cry\" as their wool is removed. The earliest recorded variation appears to be by 15th century English lawyer John Fortescue, who wrote \"Moche Crye and no Wull\" in De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470), ch. x.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "noun"
      },
      "expansion": "more cry than wool",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "all bark and no bite"
    },
    {
      "word": "all smoke and no fire"
    },
    {
      "word": "all hat and no cattle"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1747, John Smith, Chronicon Ruſticum Commerciale; or, Memoirs of Wool, &c., London: T. Osborne, page 304",
          "text": "Theſe are the Crimes of which we are guilty, before any Law to prohibit us: it were more allowable to plant Poiſon than to Manufacture with us, and we lie, it ſeems, under ſuch an Obloquy and Clamour, (which, as far as I can judge by your Letter, you alſo liſten to) that, as to import our Cattle to you is a Nuſance, and to export our Wools is Felony ; ſo, by Gradation, to erect here a Manufacture ought to be no leſs than Treaſon. And yet there is more Cry than Wool in all this Matter : For I dare, and do aſſure you, that, modeſtly ſpeaking the whole Quantity of what we work up in Ireland, amounts not to the Half of what any one Clothing-County in England does.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1999 February 26, Bruce M. Selya, “Aguilar-Solis v. INS”, in 1st Cir. 1999, case no. 98-1484",
          "text": "In rebuttal, the petitioner offers more cry than wool. He points first to the vague threats that his family and friends relayed to him during his 1990 return to El Salvador, and speculates that members of the FMLN still sought to harm him at that time. This is unabashed surmise.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Dramatic assertions backed by little evidence"
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Dramatic assertions backed by little evidence"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-more cry than wool.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/1/17/En-au-more_cry_than_wool.ogg/En-au-more_cry_than_wool.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/En-au-more_cry_than_wool.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "all cry and no wool"
    }
  ],
  "word": "more cry than wool"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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