more cry than wool

Meaning

Noun

• Dramatic assertions backed by little evidence

Origin

• Derived from the practice of shearing sheep, in which the sheep may "cry" as their wool is removed. The earliest recorded variation appears to be by 15th century English lawyer John Fortescue, who wrote "Moche Crye and no Wull" in De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470), ch. x.