woolly back

See also: woollyback and woolyback

English

Alternative forms

• wooley back (Geordie)
• woollyback
• woolyback

Etymology

The Liverpool Echo suggests two possible origins for the term, both dating back to the early 1900s:

• It may be a term for scab workers brought into the city from surrounding towns to manually load and unload ships in the Liverpool docks; unloading ships, the dockers would carry the woollen bales on their backs, leaving wool on their clothes.
• It may be a term for men who delivered coal into Liverpool from mines surrounding the city, who wore sheep fleece to protect their backs.

Another suggestion is that it could have originated in the Middle Ages from non-resident Welsh and English people trying to avoid the entry fee at the Chester city walls on market day by sneaking in the livestock entrance with a sheep on their back.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Noun

woolly back (plural woolly backs)

1. (Liverpool slang, now historical) A non-Liverpudlian person who travels to Liverpool, especially to work at the docks.
2. (Liverpool slang, derogatory) A person from the Merseyside area surrounding Liverpool such as Skelmersdale, St. Helens, Southport, Widnes, and the Wirral.
3. (British, slang) Any unsophisticated person from the countryside.
4. (US, slang) A Welsh person.
5. (US, slang) A New Zealander.

Synonyms

• woolly

Coordinate terms

• Liverpudlian
• Scouse
• Scouser
• wool
• sheepshagger
• goatfucker

Translations

slang: unsophisticated person from the countryside

• Finnish: landepaukku (fi), turvenuija (fi), bönde (fi), heinähattu (fi)

See also

• scouse
• taffy
• Yonner, similar term from Manchester

Further reading

• Fred Fazakerley, Scouse English (2001), pages 24 and 29
• Eric Partridge (2005) “woolly back”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volumes 2 (J–Z), London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 2121.