fleece
verb

- to take someone's money dishonestly, by charging too much money or by cheating them

noun

- the thick covering of wool on a sheep, or this covering used to make a piece of clothing
- a type of warm soft material, or a jacket made from this

(Cambridge Dictionaries)

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Anyone who has ever seen a sheep after its wool has been sheared can probably guess where the figurative sense of "to fleece" comes from. After all, the poor sheep is left standing there, virtually naked, without even the clothes on its back as if someone has taken its last possessions. Thus to be fleeced is to be cheated out of one’s money or a possession.

The word fleece stems from the Old English fleos and West Germanic flusaz and is related to the Middle Dutch vluus, Dutch vlies, Middle High German vlius and German Vlies. The Old English fleox and its cognates probably derive from the Proto-Indo-European "pleus," meaning to pluck, as in a feather (Latin pluma = feather, down).

The sheep and its wool give us a few other expressions such as:

- pull the wool over someone’s eyes = to deceive someone (You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. I know you borrowed the stapler from my desk!)

- dyed in the wool = steadfast in one’s opinions or beliefs (He is a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist)

- a wolf in sheep’s clothing = a dangerous person pretending to be harmless (Be careful. He has a reputation as a wolf in sheep’s clothing)

- the black sheep = someone who is thought to be the worst member of a group or family (He became the black sheep of the department after coming late to work too often)

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SYNONYMS

cheat, defraud, swindle, overcharge, milk, con, gouge, shaft, take to the cleaners, take for a ride, rip off

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today, say something like

"Some street vendors will FLEECE you if you're not careful."