cotton
Pluralcottons (some meanings)
Verbcottons, cottoning, cottoned
Pluralcottons (some meanings)
Formscottons, cottoning, cottoned
- 1A soft, fibrous, usually white substance of fine hairs, especially the material surrounding the seeds of plants of the genus Gossypium.
Workers harvest cotton from the bolls once the pods split open.
Raw cotton consists of fine white fibers clustered tightly around each seed.
Note
The fiber every other sense grows from, and its name traveled far: Middle English cotoun, through Anglo-Norman and Old French, from Old Italian cotone, and ultimately from Arabic quṭun. As a substance it is uncountable. You speak of some cotton or a bale of cotton, while "a cotton" means a garment. The plant, the cloth and the thread all took their names from this material.
- 2Fabric or textiles woven from the fiber harvested from the cotton plant, especially Gossypium.
The mill exports cotton to garment factories across the region.
Cotton wrinkles easily but breathes well in hot weather.
Note
The trade and mill sense, in which cotton is cloth in bulk, woven, sold and exported. Placed before another noun it tells what a thing is made of, as in the "grey tailored cotton dress" of Margery Allingham's The China Governess (1963). That use overlaps with the adjective. Without an article it stays uncountable: a mill exports cotton, not cottons.
- 3Consisting of or made from cotton fiber.
He prefers cotton shirts because they breathe well in the heat.
The store sells cotton towels in a dozen colors.
- 4A plant of the genus Gossypium, grown as the source of cotton fiber.
The plantation devoted hundreds of acres to cotton.
Cotton thrives in the hot climate of the southern states.
- 5Thread spun from cotton fiber, used especially for sewing.
The tailor kept spools of cotton in every color.
Use a fine cotton to hem the silk lining neatly.
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- 6An article of clothing made from cotton textiles.
On hot days she lives in loose cottons.
He bought a simple white cotton for the summer wedding.
Note
Here the cloth becomes the garment, and the word turns countable, usually appearing in the plural. Harriet W. Daly, writing in 1887, describes little girls "looking fresh and cool in pretty pink cottons." A color or quality adjective before the plural is still the natural pattern for this kind of light wear.
- 7To get on well with someone or something; to have a good relationship.
Somehow the old rivals began to cotton, and within weeks they were inseparable.
Children who cotton easily tend to settle into a new school faster.
Similarbond
Note
A separate word that happens to share the spelling. It dates from the 1560s and comes either from Welsh cydun, "agree," literally "be at one," or from the way cotton blends with wool in hat-making. It now takes "to" or "on to": dukes "cottoning to her" in 1873, people who have "cottoned on to his ideas" in 2009.
- 8Any soft, white, fibrous material made of fine hairs, regardless of what it comes from.
Milkweed pods split in the fall and scatter their cotton across the meadow.
Botanists collected the fine cotton from several unrelated plants for comparison.
- 9Any plant that wraps its seeds in a thin fiber, which is harvested and made into fabric or cloth.
Growers raise cotton chiefly for the spinnable fiber that surrounds each seed.
The plantation switched from tobacco to cotton in the early 1800s.
- 10To shield from harsh influences; to coddle or muffle.
Wealthy families sometimes cotton their children well into adulthood.
The thick stone walls cotton the studio from the noise of the street.
Similarshelter, coddle, cosset, insulate, muffle
Note
Here cotton works as a figure for padding. What the wadding verb does to a crack or a wound, this sense does to a person, a mind or a sound. It usually takes from: gardens that cotton the sound from the world, a philosophy that cottons the soul from pain. Parents who cotton a child are overprotective. Keep it apart from the "get on with" verb, which is a separate word, possibly from Welsh.
- 11The fibrous wick of a candle.
She snuffed the candle and trimmed its blackened cotton.
The chandler twisted a fresh cotton for each new candle.
Note
An archaic name for the wick, taken from the fiber it was twisted from. A candle's cotton was the part you trimmed and lit. Readers meet it in older prose, but in present-day writing "wick" is the safe choice. The chandler's verb for threading moulds, to cotton a candle, kept the idea alive in the trade.
- 12To supply or fit something with cotton.
Packers cotton the shipment to keep the bottles from breaking.
He cottoned the crate before nailing the lid shut.
Similarpad
Note
The umbrella verb for putting cotton on, in or into something, and its object can be almost anything. In W. E. B. Griffin's The Majors (1986), fools "cottoned the land," planting it with cotton until the topsoil blew away. Seymour W. Itzkoff writes of "ears cottoned," plugged against sound. The narrower trade uses, involving wicks, wads and wrappings, branch out from here.
- 13To pack or stuff something with a wad of cotton.
Nurses cotton the wound cavity to absorb any bleeding.
She cottoned the small jar to keep the pills from rattling.
Note
A packing-line term more than a household one. In bottling plants of the 1950s onward, bottling is followed by cottoning and capping: a wad goes into the bottle before the cap goes on. It appears mostly as the -ing form naming a step on the line, sometimes done by hand and sometimes built into the filling machinery.
- 14To wrap something in a protective layer of cotton fabric.
Nursery workers cotton the seedlings to shield them from sudden cold.
The grower cottoned each melon to prevent bruising on the long trip to market.
Similarwrap
Note
Gardeners use it for something lighter than fabric: cotton thread wound around a tree or stretched over seedlings to keep birds off. Amateur Gardening in 1965 complains that sparrows stripped polyanthus buds even after the plants were cottoned and sprayed. Orchard trials in 1976 cottoned cherry trees to cut losses. F. Howard Lancum, watching badgers for Country Life (1953), cottoned the holes of a sett to see what passed.
- 15To fit a lamp or candle with a cotton wick.
Chandlers cotton the molds before pouring in the hot wax.
She cottoned the brass lamp and trimmed the wick neatly.
Note
A word from the nineteenth-century candle factory. Moulds were "regularly cottoned" or "fresh cottoned," and a machine stood "ready for cottoning," which meant threaded with wick before the wax went in. It is a trade term, mostly passive or in the -ing form, and it rests on the old name for a wick.
- 16To rub or polish a surface with cotton.
Watchmakers cotton the polished cases to bring out a final luster.
He cottoned the coin gently, careful not to scratch it.
Note
A darkroom and print-shop term. Cottoning meant rubbing a plate with a swab of absorbent cotton while it developed, or opening up clogged shadow dots by hand. The Penrose Annual of 1934 warns that vigorous cottoning could injure the image. Ambrose Bierce bends the word sideways, mocking a benevolence busy "cottoning and oiling" another's product.
- 17To cover or shroud something in a layer of whiteness.
Heavy snows cotton the orchard until the branches disappear.
Mist had cottoned the harbor before the sun rose.
Note
A writer's verb for weather, with fog, mist and snow as its usual subjects. "Fog cottoned the roads under a sky like rusted tin," writes Brian Ray in Through the Pale Door (2009). It suggests a soft, unbroken blanket. When the cover breaks into separate puffs of cloud, smoke or whitecaps, the image shifts to the dotted-with-cotton sense.
- 18To raise a nap on fabric, giving it a soft, cottony texture.
Finishers cotton the woven wool to lift a downy surface.
The mill cottoned the cloth repeatedly, deepening its softness.
Note
A finishing step in the old wool-cloth trade, usually named alongside frizzing. Thomas Birch's History of the Royal Society explains that shorn cloth was cottoned on its wrong side, while frizes were cottoned on the right side, "for cottoning makes them such." Historians of the Shrewsbury drapers pair it with rowing, the raising of nap with teasels.
- 19To develop a porous, soft texture resembling cotton.
Stored turnips cotton when they lose their moisture over the winter.
The melon had cottoned at its center, mealy and flavorless.
Note
A word for texture going wrong. Produce inspectors use it for a root breaking down at its center during storage. Packaging specialists use it for a material that draws out into fluffy strands when applied too thick, and they pair it with stringing. In both trades it usually appears as the -ing form, cottoning, naming the fault rather than describing an action.
- 20
- 21To line or cover the walls of a room with fabric.
Upholsterers cotton the walls to soften the room's acoustics.
The designer cottoned the study walls in deep green damask.
Similarline
Note
A decorator's word from around 1900, when rooms were cottoned and papered under the same contract. The Sessional Papers of British Columbia record the work in government buildings as far north as Whitehorse. National Painters Magazine reckoned the cost in 1912 at twelve and a half cents per yard. Expect to find it listed beside papering and re-hanging doors, as one line in a builder's account.
- 22To coat a person with tar and then cover them with cotton bolls, a punishment like tarring and feathering.
Southern mobs sometimes chose to tar and cotton a visiting abolitionist rather than reach for feathers.
The preacher survived being tarred and cottoned, though the burns on his scalp never fully healed.
Note
Tarring and feathering had a Southern variant. The verb almost always travels with tar, as in "tar and cotton" or "tarred and cottoned." George Augustus Sala, writing in 1880, sets Northern tarring and feathering beside Southern tarring and cottoning, a punishment often inflicted on abolitionists before the Civil War. Writers of the time made a grim joke of the swap, with downy cotton standing in for plumage.
- 23A liking.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English "cotoun," borrowed through Anglo-Norman "cotun" and Old French "coton," from (Genoese) Old Italian "cotone," which came from Arabic "quṭun."
Dating from the 1560s, this is either from Welsh "cydun" or "cytun" ("agree, coincide"), literally "to be at one with," or by metaphor with the textile, since cotton blended well with other fabrics such as wool in hat-making.