Meaning
Completely and permanently committed to a belief, habit, party or pursuit, with no prospect of change: a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, fan or railway enthusiast. Usually attributive before a noun and hyphenated. From the textile practice of dyeing raw wool before spinning it into yarn, which fixes the colour permanently. Almost always attributive and hyphenated before a noun (a dyed-in-the-wool socialist); the predicate form drops the hyphens. Often tinged with wry affection rather than insult. True blue is a near-synonym. Regional use: General English.
Origin
From cloth-making. Wool can be dyed at several stages - raw wool before spinning, yarn before weaving, or finished cloth dyed in the piece - and colour worked into the fibre before spinning penetrates throughout and is the least likely to fade; hence a character dyed in the wool took its colour early and will never wash out. Wiktionary's earliest literal citation is John Smith's Chronicon Rusticum-Commerciale (1747), contrasting cloth 'dyed in the Piece' with that 'dyed in the Wool', and its earliest figurative citation is Daniel Webster's Plymouth discourse of 1820 - 'an original democrat, dyed in the wool!' - verified on the entry. Merriam-Webster, however, gives a first known use of 1580, so the publicly accessible references disagree on first use; the 1580 figure is Merriam-Webster's dating claim, not a readable citation. Nathaniel Hawthorne used the figurative form in The Scarlet Letter (1850).
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a dyed-in-the-wool fan
- dyed-in-the-wool conservative
Usage Examples
- Uncle Ray is a dyed-in-the-wool railway enthusiast who still plans his holidays around steam galas.
- A dyed-in-the-wool Yorkshireman, he refused on principle to pay southern prices for a pot of tea.
- The senator was a dyed-in-the-wool protectionist long before the tariff debate made the position fashionable.