What is a "pussy" when the word is used to describe a piece of British Army uniform in 1939?

Question

I am currently transcribing and sharing my grandparents WW2 correspondence between 1939 and 1945.

My question is in relation to this letter written on November 24th 1939.

On page 3 my grandfather mentions being issued with "a couple of wooly pussies".

(It's not "wooly pullie" (for pullover or jumper) as would make more sense in the UK. You can see from the scans that the letters are clearly 's' and not 'l'.)

Some research shows that "pussy" was used to refer to anything soft. E.g.dictionaries say "pussy-cat" means soft cat.

Clearly whatever the item is it's so well known as "pussy" that no further words are needed to identify it. I'm stumped.

If you're interested in the context for the other things mentioned in the letter please look at the rest of the archive. I am posting background information in the comments following each transcription.

You can read all the letters here r/WW2letters - transcriptions are in the comments.

Though I haven't read the letters yet, I know my Grandfather served in France, North Africa and Italy and was involved in radio or radar technology.

UPDATE! The mystery is solved. It wasn't a widely used phrase. In fact it seems so narrow that it was only used this way within our family (and obviously maybe a few others) but it confused my Grandmother on receipt of the letter.

On the first page of this letter she responds "By the way, what are your wooly pussies? Vests or pullovers?"

Two weeks later, on page 9 of this letter, my Grandfather responds. "Whilst in the subject of undies our woolly pussies are vests, I thought in the family they always had been vests."

So there we have it. They are vests (which in English, as opposed to American English, means undershirt not waistcoat).

Answer 1

Green's Dictionary of Slang notes that "pussy" has been used to mean "a fur garment"; most of the examples in that dictionary come from the UK in the mid-20th century. This usage seems to have fallen out of favor, presumably because of the newer slang meaning of the word.

The letter describes the garments in question as "certainly very warm," which would make sense. Presumably, by "wooly," he meant that they had a coarse, wool-like texture, not that they were made of wool.

Answer 2

I would guess that they are a pair of mittens or gloves. Have a look at the etymology of mitten:

Middle English mitaine, from Old French (from mite, mitten, probably from mite, term of endearment for a female cat (a mitten being so called in reference to the cat's soft fur); akin to French minet, cat) and Provençal mino, female cat, of imitative origin.

(source: thefreedictionary.com)

This suggests that there was already a connection between the word "mitten" and soft fur and female cats, so it's only a small step from there to using the word "pussies" to refer to mittens.

Answer 3

It wasn't a widely used phrase. In fact it seems so narrow that it was only used this way within our family (and obviously maybe a few others) but it confused my Grandmother on receipt of the original letter.

On the first page of this letter she responds "By the way, what are your wooly pussies? Vests or pullovers?"

Two weeks later, on page 9 of this letter, my Grandfather responds. "Whilst in the subject of undies our woolly pussies are vests, I thought in the family they always had been vests."

So there we have it. They are vests (which in English, as opposed to American English, means undershirt not waistcoat). Most likely an A-shirt.