flannel
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flannel
- /ˈflænəl/
Rhymes with -ænəl
Where it 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.
noun flannels · flannen · flanan · flanning · flanen
- A soft cloth material originally woven from wool, today often combined with cotton or synthetic fibers. With the weather turning colder, it was time to dig out our flannel sheets and nightclothes.
- A washcloth. "The Witch of Endor was a fool to her, sir: bless you, she would make no more of raising every gentleman in the Bible out of these here beastly tombs than I should of growing cress on an old flannel."
- A flannel shirt.
- Soothing, plausible untruth or half-truth; claptrap. Don't talk flannel!
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Synonym of flip (“hot mixture of beer, spirit, etc.”).
Similar: flip
adjective flannen · flanan · flanning · flanen
- Made of flannel.
verb flannels · flanneling · flannelling · flanneled · flannelled
- To rub with a flannel.
- To wrap in flannel.
-
To flatter; to suck up to.
Similar: fawn, toady, apple-polish, bootlick, bow and scrape, brown-nose, butter up, dickride, duchess, fawn over, fellate, flannel
- To waffle or prevaricate. I got a little cross and asked him to stop flannelling and to tell me what was holding me back. Were my annual assessments below par? Was there something I had done – or not done?
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: tweed, gabardine, washrag, washcloth, face cloth, white, outing, canton, outing flannel, flannell, flannelette, flannelet, flanno, fleece, flannie, flock
Translations
Talk about this word "flannel." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/flannel. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. flannel. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/flannel "flannel." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/flannel.Cite this
@misc{flannel_2026,
title = {flannel},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/flannel},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
