more cry than wool
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] 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.
[edit] Noun
- (idiomatic) Asserted but not grounded in reality.
- 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. Aguilar-Solis v. INS, case no. 98-1484 (1st Cir. 1998)
