Definition of "woolly"

Sporting a woolly cardigan with four buttons on top of an Oxford smock without a collar, our man has a faintly folksy look about him, calling to mind a zingaro or a gypsy, a carny or a Mongol, but also (switching to a wholly distinct mythology and iconography) a hippy strumming his guitar in a barroom in Haight-Ashbury or at Big Sur or in Katmandu.

1995 , Gilbert Adair, transl., A Void, translation of La Disparition by Georges Perec

My skin is black / My arms are long / My hair is woolly / My back is strong

1966, Nina Simone (lyrics and music), “Four Women”, in Wild Is the Wind

To call David Lean's Dr Zhivago a translation of Pasternak's novel is not only to disregard the specificity of film art, but to make such woolly use of the word ‘translation’ as to fit it to refer to any kind of transformation. Knitting included.

2011, David Bellos, chapter 29, in Is that a Fish in Your Ear?

woolly breeders

c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iii]

`I've got a rotten cold and I'm not taking my woollies off until it's better.'

1965, James Holledge, What Makes a Call Girl?, London: Horwitz Publications, page 82

Being an innocent Australian abroad in a European winter, I had taken with me every winter woolly I could borrow or squeeze out of friends and associates.

1987, Kerry Cue, Hang On To Your Horses Doovers, page 83