oose

See also: OOSE

English

WOTD – 11 January 2017

A dust bunny, consisting of a large amount of oose or fluff (etymology 1)

Etymology 1

From Scots oose, an alternative form of oos, the plural form of oo (“wool”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /uːs/, /uːz/

  • Audio (UK):

    (file)

• IPA^(key): /uz/, /us/

Noun

oose (uncountable)

1. (Scotland) Fluff, particularly from a textile source such as cotton or wool.
   • 2008, James Kelman, Kieron Smith, Boy, London: Hamish Hamilton, ISBN 978-0-241-14241-7; 1st US edition, Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2008, ISBN 978-0-15-101348-7; page 100:

     But I found how I could read in the bedroom and not lie on the bed. It was a wee place down between my bed and the wall where the door was. The bed was pressed against the wall but ye could just squash down and under. My da kept all suitcases under my bed but I shifted them the gether and it was easy to squash in. But when I came out it was all fluff and oose stuff down my pyjamas. My maw was shouting. Oh Kieron it is filfy it is just filfy.

   • 2008, Zanzibar “Buck Buck” McFate, “A Grain of Dried Rat Shit”, in I Battled a Giant Otter: My Gut Bustin', Mutha Lovin' Life of Manly Adventure: A Tale of Mad Catastrophe, Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 385:

     I used to collect oose. If you have an inny bellybutton, this is the linty stuff you find in its crevices at the end of the day when you have nothing better to do than explore useless parts of your body.

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

oose

2. (US) Synonym of yucca.
   • 1860, Mary Ann Hafen, Recollections of a Handcart Pioneer of 1860: With Some Account of Frontier Life in Utah and Nevada, Denver, Colo.: Privately printed for her [the author's] descendants, published 1938, →OCLC, page 41:

     A favorite substitute for soap was the root of the "oose," or yucca, sometimes called "soap root." This root looked about like a sugarbeet. Cut up and left in water it soon made a fluffy suds. Colored clothes came out fresh and bright because the cleanser did not harm the dyes. White clothes however were turned slightly yellow by it and therefore were not generally washed with oose. I remember how soft, fluffy, and sweet-smelling my hair always felt after a shampoo with oose suds. For mopping the wooden floors the oose root served not only as soap but as scrubbing brush as well. And how white and beautiful those floors would look.

   • 1941, Maurine Whipple, The Giant Joshua, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, →OCLC:

     She climbed the Red Hill one cold day and dug oose root with which to bring a new luster to her long black hair.

   • 2009, Barbara Marriott, quoting Nancy Cedenia Bagley Willis (interviewed by Roberta Flake Clayton), “Life on the Frontier”, in In Our Own Words: The Lives of Arizona Pioneer Women, Tucson, Ariz.: Fireship Press, →ISBN, page 248:

     When I was older I went out on the hillsides and dug the roots of oose, or Amole as the Mexicans call it, which were excellent to use in place of soap.

Etymology 3

Verb

oose (third-person singular simple present ooses, present participle oosing, simple past and past participle oosed)

1. Archaic form of ooze.

Related terms

• oosy

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Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /us/, /uz/

Noun

oose

1. Alternative form of oos
2. fluff