Dyed in the Wool

A genuine piece of textile trade knowledge. Dyeing raw wool before it's spun into yarn lets the colour penetrate far more deeply and permanently than dyeing finished cloth, which only takes colour on the surface and fades faster. England's wool and cloth industry was a major part of the economy by the 1300s, and writers by the 16th century had begun using the deep, lasting dye job as an image for a person's ingrained character. The earliest documented figurative use is in Richard Hooker's Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie (1597).