When something is bobbly, it is covered in little soft balls of wool. Those balls are bobbles: tiny, squashy spheres, often sewn onto a hat or a child's jumper as decoration. Though actually, the bobbly that students meet most is not the pretty kind. After a woollen jumper has been washed and worn, the surface grows its own little balls — pills of fibre rubbing up. British speakers call that jumper bobbly, and they usually do not mean it as a compliment. The word is an adjective, informal, and very British. You feel it more than you see it: a once-smooth knit that has gone bumpy. You would say it when you pick up a sweater, not write it in a formal report.

起毛球的、有小毛球的