Adjacent Words

Cotton definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

COTTON, n.
1. A soft downy substance, resembling fine wool, growing in the capsules or pods of a shrub, called the cotton-plant. It is the material of a large proportion of cloth for apparel and furniture.
2. Cloth made of cotton.
Lavender-cotton, a genus of plants, Santolina, of several species; shrubs cultivated in gardens. One species, the chamoecyparyssus or abrotanum foemina, female southernwood, is vulgarly called brotany.
Philosophic cotton, flowers of zink, which resemble cotton.
Silk-cotton tree, a genus of plants, the Bombax, growing to a great size in the Indies, and producing a kind of cotton in capsules.
COTTON, a. Pertaining to cotton; made of cotton; consisting of cotton; as cotton cloth; cotton stockings.
COTTON, v.i.
1. To rise with a nap.
2. To cement; to unite with; a cant word.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: soft silky fibers from cotton plants in their raw state [syn: cotton, cotton fiber, cotton wool]
2: fabric woven from cotton fibers
3: erect bushy mallow plant or small tree bearing bolls containing seeds with many long hairy fibers [syn: cotton, cotton plant]
4: thread made of cotton fibers v
1: take a liking to; "cotton to something"

Merriam Webster's

I. biographical name Charles 1630-1687 English author & translator II. biographical name John 1585-1652 American (English-born) Puritan clergyman

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Usage: often attributive Etymology: Middle English coton, from Anglo-French cotun, from Old Italian cotone, from Arabic qu?un, qu?n Date: 14th century 1. a. a soft usually white fibrous substance composed of the hairs surrounding the seeds of various erect freely branching tropical plants (genus Gossypium) of the mallow family b. a plant producing cotton; especially one grown for its cotton c. a crop of cotton 2. a. fabric made of cotton b. yarn spun from cotton 3. a downy cottony substance produced by various plants (as the cottonwood) II. intransitive verb (cottoned; cottoning) Date: 1605 1. to take a liking — used with to <cottons to people easily> 2. to come to understand — used with to or on to <cottoned on to the fact that our children work furiously — H. M. McLuhan>

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. 1 a soft white fibrous substance covering the seeds of certain plants. 2 a (in full cotton plant) such a plant, esp. any of the genus Gossypium. b cotton-plants cultivated as a crop for the fibre or the seeds. 3 thread or cloth made from the fibre. 4 (attrib.) made of cotton. --v.intr. (foll. by to) be attracted by (a person). Phrases and idioms: cotton-cake compressed cotton seed used as food for cattle. cotton candy US candyfloss. cotton-gin a machine for separating cotton from its seeds. cotton-grass any grasslike plant of the genus Eriophorum, with long white silky hairs. cotton on (often foll. by to) colloq. begin to understand. cotton-picking US sl. unpleasant, wretched. cotton waste refuse yarn used to clean machinery etc. cotton wool 1 esp. Brit. fluffy wadding of a kind orig. made from raw cotton. 2 US raw cotton. Derivatives: cottony adj. Etymology: ME f. OF coton f. Arab. kutn

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cotton Cot"ton (k[o^]t"t'n), n. [F. coton, Sp. algodon the cotton plant and its wool, coton printed cotton, cloth, fr. Ar. qutun, alqutun, cotton wool. Cf. Acton, Hacqueton.] 1. A soft, downy substance, resembling fine wool, consisting of the unicellular twisted hairs which grow on the seeds of the cotton plant. Long-staple cotton has a fiber sometimes almost two inches long; short-staple, from two thirds of an inch to an inch and a half. 2. The cotton plant. See Cotten plant, below. 3. Cloth made of cotton. Note: Cotton is used as an adjective before many nouns in a sense which commonly needs no explanation; as, cotton bagging; cotton cloth; cotton goods; cotton industry; cotton mill; cotton spinning; cotton tick. Cotton cambric. See Cambric, n., 2. Cotton flannel, the manufactures' name for a heavy cotton fabric, twilled, and with a long plush nap. In England it is called swan's-down cotton, or Canton flannel. Cotton gin, a machine to separate the seeds from cotton, invented by Eli Whitney. Cotton grass (Bot.), a genus of plants (Eriphorum) of the Sedge family, having delicate capillary bristles surrounding the fruit (seedlike achenia), which elongate at maturity and resemble tufts of cotton. Cotton mouse (Zool.), a field mouse (Hesperomys gossypinus), injurious to cotton crops. Cotton plant (Bot.), a plant of the genus Gossypium, of several species, all growing in warm climates, and bearing the cotton of commerce. The common species, originally Asiatic, is G. herbaceum. Cotton press, a building and machinery in which cotton bales are compressed into smaller bulk for shipment; a press for baling cotton. Cotton rose (Bot.), a genus of composite herbs (Filago), covered with a white substance resembling cotton. Cotton scale (Zo["o]l.), a species of bark louse (Pulvinaria innumerabilis), which does great damage to the cotton plant. Cotton shrub. Same as Cotton plant. Cotton stainer (Zo["o]l.), a species of hemipterous insect (Dysdercus suturellus), which seriously damages growing cotton by staining it; -- called also redbug. Cotton thistle (Bot.), the Scotch thistle. See under Thistle. Cotton velvet, velvet in which the warp and woof are both of cotton, and the pile is of silk; also, velvet made wholly of cotton. Cotton waste, the refuse of cotton mills. Cotton wool, cotton in its raw or woolly state. Cotton worm (Zool.), a lepidopterous insect (Aletia argillacea), which in the larval state does great damage to the cotton plant by eating the leaves. It also feeds on corn, etc., and hence is often called corn worm, and Southern army worm.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Cotton Cot"ton, v. i. 1. To rise with a regular nap, as cloth does. [Obs.] It cottons well; it can not choose but bear A pretty nap. --Family of Love. 2. To go on prosperously; to succeed. [Obs.] New, Hephestion, does not this matter cotton as I would? --Lyly. 3. To unite; to agree; to make friends; -- usually followed by with. [Colloq.] A quarrel will end in one of you being turned off, in which case it will not be easy to cotton with another. --Swift. Didst see, Frank, how the old goldsmith cottoned in with his beggarly companion? --Sir W. Scott. 4. To take a liking to; to stick to one as cotton; -- used with to. [Slang]

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(cottons, cottoning, cottoned) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. Cotton is a type of cloth made from soft fibres from a particular plant. ...a cotton shirt. N-MASS: oft N n 2. Cotton is a plant which is grown in warm countries and which produces soft fibres used in making cotton cloth. ...a large cotton plantation in Tennessee. 3. Cotton is thread that is used for sewing, especially thread that is made from cotton. (mainly BRIT; in AM, use thread) There's a needle and cotton there. N-MASS 4. Cotton or absorbent cotton is a soft mass of cotton, used especially for applying liquids or creams to your skin. (AM; in BRIT, use cotton wool)

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

kot'-'-n (karpac is the better translation, as in the Revised Version, margin, where the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) have "green" in Es 1:6): The Hebrew karpac is from the Persian kirpas and the Sanskrit karpasa, "the cotton plant." The derived words originally meant "muslin" or "calico," but in classical times the use of words allied to karpac--in Greek and Latin--was extended to include linen. The probability is in favor of "cotton" in Es 1:6. This is the product of Gossypium herbaceum, a plant originally from India but now cultivated in many other lands.

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Cotton-wool, raw cotton.

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