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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

flannel.

A soft cloth material originally woven from wool, today often combined with cotton or synthetic fibers.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈflænəl/
  1. A soft cloth material originally woven from wool, today often combined with cotton or synthetic fibers.

    uncountable
    With the weather turning colder, it was time to dig out our flannel sheets and nightclothes.
  2. A washcloth.

    New-Zealand · UK · countable
  3. A flannel shirt.

    US · countable
  4. Soothing, plausible untruth or half-truth; claptrap.

    slang · uncountable
    Don't talk flannel!
  5. Synonym of flip (“hot mixture of beer, spirit, etc.”).

    UK · countable · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English flaunneol, from Anglo-Norman flanelle (compare Norman flianné), diminutive of Old French flaine, floene (“coarse wool”), from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *wlānos, *wlanā (“wool”) (compare Welsh gwlân, Breton gloan), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂. More at wool.

adj/ˈflænəl/
  1. Made of flannel.

    not-comparable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English flaunneol, from Anglo-Norman flanelle (compare Norman flianné), diminutive of Old French flaine, floene (“coarse wool”), from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *wlānos, *wlanā (“wool”) (compare Welsh gwlân, Breton gloan), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂. More at wool.

verb/ˈflænəl/
  1. To rub with a flannel.

    transitive
  2. To wrap in flannel.

    transitive
  3. To flatter; to suck up to.

    transitive
  4. To waffle or prevaricate.

    slang · transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English flaunneol, from Anglo-Norman flanelle (compare Norman flianné), diminutive of Old French flaine, floene (“coarse wool”), from Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *wlānos, *wlanā (“wool”) (compare Welsh gwlân, Breton gloan), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂. More at wool.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.