Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus./N.Z.) any form of specious talk, lies, insincerity, rubbish; thus bull’s wool artist n.

1896		Coburg Leader (Vic.) 15 Feb. 5/4: Do you think boys that bull’s-wool is growing down East.
[1903		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 July 14/4: [V]ery often she enters a factory with a ‘London Novelette’ yarn humming in her ears about the girl who charmed the wealthy boss whilst working at a lemon-peel machine, and became Lady Gwendoline, of Bullswool Towers].
[1904		C.W Johnston Out-Back Homestead 56: Say, Bullswool, you were a fool to ever work [AND]].
1933		R. Tate Doughman 20: The way you harp on Honesty, and you the bull’s-wool artist from the Devil’s Sunday School!
1943		J.A.W. Bennett ‘Eng. as it is Spoken in N.Z.’ in AS XVIII:2 Apr. 91: Bullswool, the Australian name for the fibre of the stringybark tree, expresses scorn or contempt.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 231/1: bull’s wool – misinformation.
1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 134: Now you all saw that write-up in the sports paper last Saturday about what a great team Wellington Grammar are [...] and all that bullswool.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 23/1: bullswool nonsense, or exclamation at serving up of.
1990		Terrace Standard (BC) 6 June B7/1: The egocentric me-and-Bob-caught-one-fish-after-another bullwool so often encountered .
2000		Dallas Morning News ‘How to Speak Australian’ 7 Sept. 🌐 The boomer oil might turn out to be no more than bull’s wool [...] Here’s what we mean: Boomer: large or huge Oil: news Bull’s wool: an unlikely story; baloney.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2010		Terrace Standard (BC) 20 Jan. 31/2: The bombast, spin and bullwool that characterizes contemporary ads .