fuller:

Apart from other meanings/definitions…

in this context, ‘full’ means “to clean and thicken or to pleat”

a worker whose job is to clean and thicken the newly made (woven) cloth,

two Korean fullers fulling the cloth by ponding it with wooden sticks (1900) — the cloth was placed on a slab of stone between them

e.g.

In the very past, the job of a fuller was described as the worst of all times.

To soften the fibre, the fullers in the past used ‘fuller’s earth’, a kind of clay found in the nature, and a week old urine!

In the modern day cloth making, fullers, the workers who did the fulling of cloth in the past, are not needed, but the good old ‘fuller’s earth’, a type of clay, is still used.

Some experts compare the fullers of the past to the ‘dry cleaners’ of the present, both cleaning cloth using tools and chemicals!

For a page in book about the life in ancient Rome in which we find this word in its true meaning, please click here, for an article that explains what a fuller’s soap is, please click here, for an article that explains the important role the fullers played in ancient Rome, please click here and for an informative article that explains the process of fulling and felting of cloth, please click here.

(a fuller — a blacksmith’s hammer/tool)

Note 1: ‘Fuller’ is also used to refer to a tool, a hammer, used by a blacksmith.
Note 2: ‘Fuller’ is more commonly used as the comparative form of the adjective word ‘full’ — full — fuller — fullest, to mean ‘complete’, ‘up to the top or brim of something’, and also it is used as a noun referring to a thing/tool. For an article that shows us how this word is used as an adjective in comparative form, please click here.
Note 3: ‘Fuller’, always with a capital ‘F’, is often found in the names of people, e.g. Kip Fuller, Tia Fuller, Ben Fuller, etc. For an article that explains the probable origin, please click here.