(uncountable) A soft, fibrous, usually white substance consisting of fine hairs, especially the substance around the seeds of a plant of genusGossypium.
(uncountable) Any similar soft, fibrous, white substance of fine hairs, of any origin.
plant source
A plant of genusGossypium, used as a source of such fiber.
1976, Chuen-Yan David Lai, “Developments of Cotton Cultivation in Sinkiang”, inPacific Viewpoint[1], volume17, number 2,→DOI, archived fromthe original on30 June 2020, page162:
K'a-shih has the most extensivecotton-growing area which amounted to 950 000mou (6.3 million ares) in 1965.
Any plant that encases itsseed in a thinfiber that is harvested and used as afabric orcloth.
Now that she had rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety. She looked cool in a grey tailoredcotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet.
(countable) An item of clothing made from such textiles.
1887, Harriet W. Daly,Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page34:
The little girls appeared, looking fresh and cool in pretty pinkcottons, and we two elder ones seized the opportunity of making a more elaborate toilette than usual.
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1989 February 12, “Safer Sex and Drug Use Guidelines”, inGay Community News, volume16, number30, page12:
Do not re-use needles; use freshcottons each time.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions atWiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Goddamned fools hadcottoned the land, and just worked it to death, destroying the topsoil, so it blew away, and then, when the rains came, gullied it, so that it wasn't worth a damn for anything.
1990, Seymour W. Itzkoff,The Making of the Civilized Mind, page69:
Eyes closed, earscottoned, the mind produces its own interior messages.
To supply with a cotton wick.
1838, William Newton,The London Journal of Arts and Sciences, and Repertory of Patent Inventions, page 8:
Supposing a frame, or set of moulds, as represented at B, to have wicks carried through each mould, or regularlycottoned, and each wick to be held accurately in the centre of the mould by means of the series of nippers shown at fig. 8, the moulds are first taken to the position shown at B 1, figs. 2, 3, and 4, where they are supported in a perpendicular position on the small straight edges or railway d, d, as seen at fig. 3.
1852, George Fergusson Wilson,On the stearic candle manufacture, page24:
Each machine has on average 200 moulds, each mould contains 18 bobbins, and each bobbin, when firstcottoned, 60 yards of wick, so that supposing all the frames of our seven machines to be freshcottoned at the same time, we should have above 800 miles of wick in work.
1880, Edward Spon, Francis N. Spon, George Guillaume André,Spons' Encyclopædia of the Industrial Arts, Manufactures, and Commercial products:
The method of using the machine is as follows: — After having made the connection between the hot and cold water pipes and the machine at K, and having connected the outlet pipe with a drain, the machine is ready forcottoning.
To fill with a wad of cotton.
1953,Manufacturing Series - Issues 211-224, page33:
First comes bottling, which is done both by machine and by hand. This is followed bycottoning and capping.
1962,Time and Motion Study - Volume 11, page16:
Althoughcottoning is performed by hand, the hand-capping operation is assisted by a mechanical friction wheel, driven through a flexible cable.
1975,Food Engineering - Volume 47, page94:
Features of the CM/CCI (Continuous Motion, Close-Coupled Integrated) packaging line segment include control of containers from the bottle feeder through the filling/cottoning operations and space savings in packaging line lengths.
(horticulture) To wrap with a protective layer of cotton fabric.
1937,Chambers's Journal, page399:
When a tree is to becottoned the ends from the cops are brought together and tied in a rough knot, which is hitched to a twig. Then, with the tube held upright, the operator walks round the tree as many times as may be necessary to cover it with lines of cotton, raising the metal tube about three feet after each round.
1953 June 25, F. Howard Lancum, “More Nights at a Badgers' Sett”, inCountry Life, volume113, page2064:
I went round and quietlycottoned all the nine holes, and next moring I found all the cottons intact.
1965,Amateur Gardening - Volume 82, page199:
I planted out over 600 polyanthus plants, and almost without exception the sparrows had the new buds off — after I had bothcottoned and sprayed with Jeyes. They also destroyed two rows of brussels sprouts seedlings — again aftercottoning and spraying.
1976,Horticulture Industry, page142:
The National Fruit Trials at Brogdale will this year be working in conjunction with Worplesden oncottoning cherry orchards as a method of reducing losses, although it can never entirely prevent damage.
Mr. Taylor said he reckoned the cost ofcottoning at twelve and one-half cents per yard.
(tar and cotton) To cover with cotton bolls over a layer of tar (analogous totar and feather )
1864,Honor: Or The Slave-dealer's Daughter, page151:
Tar andcotton him," said a student from the college, more facetiously, perhaps, more mercifully inclined. " Think, fellows, what a pretty bird he will be, with cotton for feathers ; — so downy."
1874,Belgravia - Volume 22, page311:
The Southerners caught him ; and, as a natural consequence of his capture, he was, after a little preliminary cowhiding and railriding, tarred andcottoned; the soft and downy substance growing in the pod of the cotton plant being in the sunny South the substitute for 'the penal plumes' —as Sydney Smith in humorous euphuism called the feathers wwibh, in combination with a coating of pitch, made up the ignominious livery of an offender whom the Americans delight to dishonour.
1880, George Augustus Sala,Paris Herself Again in 1878-9 - Volume 1, page248:
Tarring and feathering in the Northern States of America, or tarring andcottoning in the South (the last a freak frequently played with Abolitionists prior to the Great Civil War), could have been as nothing, looked upon as a frolic, compared with the racy humours of the Golden House.
The finishing operations consisted of shearing the nap from the cloth, and frizzing, orcottoning, the surface, by pressing with hot irons.
1968, Thomas Birch,The History of the Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge from Its First Rise:
When the cloth is thus shorn on one side, it is for the most partcottoned on the other side, which they call the wrong side ; but frizes arecottoned on the " right side", forcottoning makes them such.
1953, Thomas Corwin Mendenhall,The Shrewsbury drapers and the Welsh wool trade in the XVI and XVII centuries:
The final finishing processes—cottoning and rowing, or raising the nap with teasels and shearing it smooth again—were performed after the Drapers had carried the cloth to Shrewsbury.
1985, Eric Kerridge,Textile Manufactures in Early Modern England,→ISBN, page19:
Webs made from them had to be frizzed orcottoned.
2015, Catherine Hall, Nicholas Draper, Keith McClelland,Emancipation and the Remaking of the British Imperial World,→ISBN:
The 'cotton' was, in fact, a woollen fabric, one whose nap had been teased upwards or 'cottoned'.
At this moment he saw the platecottoning, as he expressed it, to his young friend, Charles Freeland, who sat in the pew at his right. He watched to see what the young merchant would give ; and to his amazement, he saw the young man put in a fifty dollar note!
1971,Modern Packaging Encyclopedia, page112:
Used at medium to thin consistency to avoid stringing orcottoning and to assure proper spreading characteristics.
2001,Quality Assurance in Marketing of Fresh Horticultural Produce:
However, this variety exhibitedcottoning (breaking down of the central portion of the root) starting on the 14th up to the 20th day of storage.
To give the appearance of being dotted with cotton balls.
1970, Western Writers of America,Spurs West, page111:
A fair piece ahead, in answering signalcottoned the sky in rhythmic puffs.
1998, George P. Morrill,The Blake Streak: A Tale of War, Mutiny and Love,→ISBN, page137:
Choppy wavescottoned the bay.
2000, Elizabeth Stead,The Fishcastle, page124:
And he quickly changed the subject as the first of the afternoon cloudscottoned the sky and laid shadows across Marlin Hardwick's rustling, winding, scuttling and bird-calling yard.
1937, Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association,The Improvement Era - Volume 40, page186:
Fogcottoned the steep, wooded slopes on each side of the lake, and the air was chill and penetrating.
1956, Edwin Gilbert,Native Stone, page316:
There was no evidence by Thursday of the snowfall that had thicklycottoned the Taunton area; the town and state plows had scraped the roads clean, and the only sight of snow remaining lay in the drifts and patches on the sheltered, wooded slopes northward.
2009, Brian Ray,Through the Pale Door: A Novel, page42:
Fogcottoned the roads under a sky like rusted tin.
1971,Under the Sign of Pisces - Volumes 2-4, page 9:
Jeanne's house, like Usher's, is a void of great silence and immobility and the "somnambulistic gardens" surrounding her house like Usher's tarn "cottoned the sound from the world."
1976, John Tytell, Harold Jaffe,Affinities: A Short Story Anthology,→ISBN:
The violins were muted, the hands were gloved, carpets were unrolled forever under the feet, and the gardenscottoned the sound from the world.
1978, Robert D. Hare, Daisy Schalling,Psychopathic Behaviour: Approaches to Research, page324:
In the case of the whippingboys, however, the closeness of the relationship was often given a somewhat negative interpretation by the teachers — the parents were over-anxious, 'cottoned' the boy, were overprotective.
1982,Daedalus, page138:
Indeed, pragmatism and technicismcottoned the American soul from some of the worst pains of an unmysterious world, although they would later be poor guardians against its encroachment.
1912, Ambrose Bierce,The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, page267:
To oppress one's own workmen, and provide for the workmen of a neighbor — to skin those in charge of one's own interests whilecottoning and oiling the residuary product of another's skinnery — that is not very good benevolence, nor very good sense, but it serves in place of both.
1934,The Penrose Annual: Review of the Graphic Arts:
It was inclined to be scummy in developing, and the consequent vigorous 'cottoning' or rubbing with a swab of absorbent cotton while in the developing sink, which was necessary to open it up, often caused injury to the image.
1969,Book Production Industry - Volume 6; Volume 45, page78:
The solution has been to unplug the dots — open up the shadow areas — by re-etching,cottoning, and other handwork.
1560s, either fromWelshcydun,cytun(“agree, coincide”) (cyduno,cytuno), fromcyd,cyt +un(“one”), literally “to be at one with”, or by metaphor with the textile, as cotton blended well with other textiles, notably wool in hat-making.
I want to tell you the Dukes, both mother and son, arecottoning to her fast enough.
2009 March 21, Farhad Manjoo, “A Conference That Starts on Time and Stays on Schedule”, inThe New York Times[4]:
The conference—Mr. Allen’s first gathering, and, depending on the economic outlook, maybe his last—brought together entrepreneurs, techies, writers and even some middle managers who’vecottoned on to his ideas.
Palmer, Abram Smythe (1882),Folk-etymology: a dictionary of verbal corruptions or words perverted in form or meaning, by false derivation or mistaken analogy, G. Bell and Sons,page76
