Meaning
Rough, disorderly, uncontrolled, or unconstrained by convention. Current but often invokes a stylised frontier past Regional use: Western United States.
Origin
An American frontier expression documented in Kansas in 1872 and 1873. Early extended forms, wild and woolly and hard to curry, make the animal image visible: an unkempt or untamed creature whose coat has not been groomed. It soon described cowboys, frontier settlements, and unruly conduct more broadly. Woolly is therefore not merely a rhyme, though alliteration aided the phrase.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- wild and woolly and hard to curry
- wild and wooly
Usage Examples
- The first debate was a wild and woolly affair with no timekeeper in sight.
- His memoir turns the quiet trading post into a wild-and-woolly frontier town.