The act of shearing wool from sheep; also, the stolen wool or fleece itself; or metaphorically, the act of cheating or defrauding someone.
From 'fleece' (verb), adding the present participle suffix '-ing.' The metaphorical meaning (cheating) evolved because wool-shearing removes something valuable, paralleling how fraud removes money or property.
The word 'fleecing' beautifully captures how language evolves from literal actions to metaphors—Medieval shearing wool became modern slang for financial scams because both strip away something precious, showing how humans think in analogies.
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