"woolsack" meaning in English

See woolsack in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: woolsacks [plural]
Etymology: From wool + sack. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|wool|sack}} wool + sack Head templates: {{en-noun}} woolsack (plural woolsacks)
  1. A bag or bale of wool.
    Sense id: en-woolsack-en-noun-fct4LrzE
  2. A seat made of wool; (specifically) the traditional seat of the British Lord Chancellor (since 2006 of the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords); hence (by metonymy) the post of Lord-Chancellor.
    Sense id: en-woolsack-en-noun-EYE7ZtFS Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 2 75 23
  3. Synonym of corestone Synonyms: corestone [synonym, synonym-of]
    Sense id: en-woolsack-en-noun-oip22EyV

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for woolsack meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "wool",
        "3": "sack"
      },
      "expansion": "wool + sack",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From wool + sack.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "woolsacks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  "head_templates": [
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      "expansion": "woolsack (plural woolsacks)",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1794 January 23, Hester Lynch Piozzi, Thraliana",
          "text": "We shall never beat the French says one, why truly replied I, 'tis like kicking at a Woolsack—there is perpetual Resistance made, & a strange Elasticity […].",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A bag or bale of wool."
      ],
      "id": "en-woolsack-en-noun-fct4LrzE",
      "links": [
        [
          "bag",
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        ],
        [
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        [
          "wool",
          "wool"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "2 75 23",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1830, John Galt, The Life of Lord Byron",
          "text": "On entering the House, he is described to have appeared abashed and pale: he passed the woolsack without looking round, and advanced to the table where the proper officer was attending to administer the oaths.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1895, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, The Evil Guest",
          "text": "Well, Dick,\" rejoined Sir Wynston, merrily, \"if both are to be fulfilled, or neither, I trust you may never sit upon the woolsack of England.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1902, John Lord, Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII",
          "text": "But when the Lord Chancellor left the woolsack to congratulate him, and with a smiling face extended his hand, the embittered young peer bowed coldly and stiffly, and simply held out two or three of his fingers,--an act of impudence for which there was no excuse.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A seat made of wool; (specifically) the traditional seat of the British Lord Chancellor (since 2006 of the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords); hence (by metonymy) the post of Lord-Chancellor."
      ],
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      "glosses": [
        "Synonym of corestone"
      ],
      "id": "en-woolsack-en-noun-oip22EyV",
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{
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    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
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  "etymology_templates": [
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      "args": {
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  ],
  "etymology_text": "From wool + sack.",
  "forms": [
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      "form": "woolsacks",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1794 January 23, Hester Lynch Piozzi, Thraliana",
          "text": "We shall never beat the French says one, why truly replied I, 'tis like kicking at a Woolsack—there is perpetual Resistance made, & a strange Elasticity […].",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A bag or bale of wool."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "bag",
          "bag"
        ],
        [
          "bale",
          "bale"
        ],
        [
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        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1830, John Galt, The Life of Lord Byron",
          "text": "On entering the House, he is described to have appeared abashed and pale: he passed the woolsack without looking round, and advanced to the table where the proper officer was attending to administer the oaths.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1895, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, The Evil Guest",
          "text": "Well, Dick,\" rejoined Sir Wynston, merrily, \"if both are to be fulfilled, or neither, I trust you may never sit upon the woolsack of England.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1902, John Lord, Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII",
          "text": "But when the Lord Chancellor left the woolsack to congratulate him, and with a smiling face extended his hand, the embittered young peer bowed coldly and stiffly, and simply held out two or three of his fingers,--an act of impudence for which there was no excuse.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A seat made of wool; (specifically) the traditional seat of the British Lord Chancellor (since 2006 of the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords); hence (by metonymy) the post of Lord-Chancellor."
      ],
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  ],
  "wikipedia": [
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  ],
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}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-24 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (46b31b8 and c7ea76d). 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.