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Below is the picture of what I mean. So, I wanna know the name of these "rolls", what are they called? Pellets? Rolls?

As you can see, some people use razors or fabric shavers to get rid of them.

enter image description here

Pavel Orekhov
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3 Answers3

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Those are commonly known as pills, or bobbles in the UK, though other terms may be in use depending on location. From Wikipedia:

A pill, colloquially known as a bobble, fuzzball, or lint ball is a small ball of fibers that forms on a piece of cloth. 'Pill' is also a verb for the formation of such balls.

As the Wikipedia article mentions, pill is also the verb form for this, and the form pilling is sometimes used for multiple pills together, as in:

This sweater pills like crazy! I started out picking off individual pills, but I really need a shaver thing to get rid of all the pilling.

1006a
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    Interesting... I've more commonly heard it being described as lint... never heard of this pill thing before – ColonD Jan 21 '19 at 09:41
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    @colond Pills are made of lint, but lint also takes other forms. – Ben Jan 21 '19 at 09:52
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    Bobble is the most common in British English (anecdotally) – JeffUK Jan 21 '19 at 15:22
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    @ColonD Never heard of "pill" either until I started reading Amazon reviews for clothing items. – pacoverflow Jan 21 '19 at 21:22
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    I've always thought that the name "pill" came from the resemblance between the little spheres of lint and small tablets of medicine. OED dates "fabric pill" back to only the 1950s, while "pill" as a small round dollop of medicine, ammunition, or animal excrement is attested centuries earlier. – rob Jan 21 '19 at 22:09
  • Also, I believe that pill bugs are named after this phenomenon – Jared Smith Jan 22 '19 at 11:55
  • I’ve never heard of pill. Coming from England, I only know them as bobbles. As in ‘oh no! My jumper’s gone all bobbley in the dryer!’ – Jelila Jan 23 '19 at 02:25
  • @Jelila or other BrE speakers, is there a verb form of bobble? I'm thinking if that's clearly the most common term in the UK I should add that info to the answer, so folks don't have to look in the comments for it. – 1006a Jan 23 '19 at 02:35
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    If you ‘bobble something’ you put bobbles on it. Eg, to bobble a hat. Means, put a pom pom or, multiple pompoms or ‘bobbles’ on top of the hat. To ‘bobble about’ - to move or wobble in a ‘concentric circles’ kind of way. ‘The alien craft appeared, bobbled about (or, just ‘bobbled on’) the horizon, then disappeared. To ‘bibble-bobble’ to move in a ‘concentric circles’ or ‘repeating overlapping circles’ kind of way - between two things - ‘we bibble-bobbled between Harrods and Selfridges all day, trying on all kinds of outfits’. It means to move like a fly, moving in random overlapping circles. – Jelila Jan 23 '19 at 02:54
  • You could, if you want to ‘de-bobble a piece of fabric’. Just be careful we don’t think you are removing pom-poms from it. ‘I’m de-bobbling the burrs from this fabric’. ‘I’m de-bobbling the fluff from this fabric’. – Jelila Jan 23 '19 at 03:00
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    Funnily, where I'm from in the UK we tend to call the things "bobbles" but still use "pilling" to describe the accumulation of them on clothing. –  Jan 23 '19 at 13:15
  • @Jelila I suspect the meaning of bobble for the motion you describe is separate from it being used for these. The meanings don’t seem very similar, and that meaning seems more like the American usage. In AmE, it isn’t used for these (they are pills, as the answer says), but bobble as a verb is pretty common. It means, roughly, flailing to try to catch something, a sort of accidental juggling. Very often used to describe athletes having difficulties catching a ball (e.g. in baseball). – KRyan Jan 23 '19 at 16:21
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    +1. There is a standard test methodology published by ASTM for pilling. https://www.astm.org/Standards/D3512.htm – user662852 Jan 24 '19 at 19:30
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I'm pretty sure that's lint.

Lint is the common name for visible accumulations of textile fibers and other materials, usually found on and around clothing.
Lint (Wikipedia article)

Here are the before and after photos of a carpet after a lint remover has been used:

Picture

lint
1.Clinging bits of fiber and fluff; fuzz.
American Heritage Dictionary

It's important to remember that lint can refer to this type of material found in various places, for example, pockets, carpets, clothes surfaces, even belly button (navel).
Navel lint

Wikipedia covers a lot of them.

So you may want to specify by saying clothes lint etc. Also, not all lint is created equal, if they take form of a particular shape, like balls, capsules, rolls etc, you can use different words.

Zebrafish
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In the UK I call them bobbles, "the clothes have gone bobbly."

and to double check I am not alone:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/bobble-remover

cambridge dictionary

bobble noun

​ uk (us pill) a small ball of thread that develops on clothing or furniture covered in cloth

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WendyG
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