cotton

Etymology 1

Middle English cotoun, from Anglo-Norman cotun, Old French coton, from (Genoese) Old Italian cotone, from Arabic قُطُن (quṭun).

noun

1. Gossypium, a genus of plant used as a source of cotton fiber.
   K'a-shih has the most extensive cotton-growing area which amounted to 950 000 mou (6.3 million ares) in 1965. 1976, Chuen-Yan David Lai, “Developments of Cotton Cultivation in Sinkiang”, in Pacific Viewpoint, volume 17, number 2, →DOI, archived from the original on 2020-06-30, page 162
2. Any plant that encases its seed in a thin fiber that is harvested and used as a fabric or cloth.
3. Any fiber similar in appearance and use to Gossypium fiber.
4. (textiles) The textile made from the fiber harvested from a cotton plant, especially Gossypium.
   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 tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet. 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 2, in The China Governess
5. (countable) An item of clothing made from cotton.
   The little girls appeared, looking fresh and cool in pretty pink cottons, and we two elder ones seized the opportunity of making a more elaborate toilette than usual. 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 34

adj

1. Made of cotton.

verb

1. (transitive) To provide with cotton.
   1. To supply with a cotton wick.
      Supposing a frame, or set of moulds, as represented at B, to have wicks carried through each mould, or regularly cottoned, 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. 1838, William Newton, The London Journal of Arts and Sciences, and Repertory of Patent Inventions, page 8
      Each machine has on average 200 moulds, each mould contains 18 bobbins, and each bobbin, when first cottoned, 60 yards of wick, so that supposing all the frames of our seven machines to be fresh cottoned at the same time, we should have above 800 miles of wick in work. 1852, George Fergusson Wilson, On the stearic candle manufacture, page 24
      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 for cottoning. 1880, Edward Spon, Francis N. Spon, George Guillaume André, Spons' Encyclopædia of the Industrial Arts, Manufactures, and Commercial products
   2. To fill with a wad of cotton.
      First comes bottling, which is done both by machine and by hand. This is followed by cottoning and capping. 1953, Manufacturing Series - Issues 211-224, page 33
      Although cottoning is performed by hand, the hand-capping operation is assisted by a mechanical friction wheel, driven through a flexible cable. 1962, Time and Motion Study - Volume 11, page 16
      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. 1975, Food Engineering - Volume 47, page 94
   3. (horticulture) To wrap with a protective layer of cotton fabric.
      When a tree is to be cottoned 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. 1937, Chambers's Journal, page 399
      I went round and quietly cottoned all the nine holes, and next moring I found all the cottons intact. June 25, 1953, F. Howard Lancum, “More Nights at a Badgers' Sett”, in Country Life, volume 113, page 2064
      I planted out over 600 polyanthus plants, and almost without exception the sparrows had the new buds off — after I had both cottoned and sprayed with Jeyes. They also destroyed two rows of brussels sprouts seedlings — again after cottoning and spraying. 1965, Amateur Gardening - Volume 82, page 199
      The National Fruit Trials at Brogdale will this year be working in conjunction with Worplesden on cottoning cherry orchards as a method of reducing losses, although it can never entirely prevent damage. 1976, Horticulture Industry, page 142
   4. To cover walls with fabric.
      The rooms downstairs were cottoned, the doors re-hung, and a counter put in the record office. 1900, Sessional Papers (British Columbia), page 389
      Robinson, W., Whitehorse: cottoning and papering 10 rooms, hall and staircase, at sergeant's mess, $206; 1906, Sessional Papers - Volume 40, Issue 1, Part 2, page R-51
      Mr. Taylor said he reckoned the cost of cottoning at twelve and one-half cents per yard. 1912, National Painters Magazine - Volume 39, page 657
   5. (tar and cotton) To cover with cotton bolls over a layer of tar (analogous to tar and feather )
      Tar and cotton 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." 1864, Honor: Or The Slave-dealer's Daughter, page 151
      The Southerners caught him ; and, as a natural consequence of his capture, he was, after a little preliminary cowhiding and railriding, tarred and cottoned; 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. 1874, Belgravia - Volume 22, page 311
      Tarring and feathering in the Northern States of America, or tarring and cottoning 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. 1880, George Augustus Sala, Paris Herself Again in 1878-9 - Volume 1, page 248
2. To make or become cotton-like
   1. To raise a nap, providing with a soft, cottony texture.
      The finishing operations consisted of shearing the nap from the cloth, and frizzing, or cottoning, the surface, by pressing with hot irons. 1959, Historical Journal - Volume 7, page 42
      When the cloth is thus shorn on one side, it is for the most part cottoned on the other side, which they call the wrong side ; but frizes are cottoned on the " right side", for cottoning makes them such. 1968, Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London for Improving of Natural Knowledge from Its First Rise
      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. 1953, Thomas Corwin Mendenhall, The Shrewsbury drapers and the Welsh wool trade in the XVI and XVII centuries
      Webs made from them had to be frizzed or cottoned. 1985, Eric Kerridge, Textile Manufactures in Early Modern England, page 19
      The 'cotton' was, in fact, a woollen fabric, one whose nap had been teased upwards or 'cottoned'. 2015, Catherine Hall, Nicholas Draper, Keith McClelland, Emancipation and the Remaking of the British Imperial World
   2. To develop a porous, cottony texture.
      At this moment he saw the plate cottoning, 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! 1854, The Churchman's Monthly Magazine - Volume 1, page 148
      Used at medium to thin consistency to avoid stringing or cottoning and to assure proper spreading characteristics. 1971, Modern Packaging Encyclopedia, page 112
      However, this variety exhibited cottoning (breaking down of the central portion of the root) starting on the 14th up to the 20th day of storage. 2001, Quality Assurance in Marketing of Fresh Horticultural Produce
   3. To give the appearance of being dotted with cotton balls.
      A fair piece ahead, in answering signal cottoned the sky in rhythmic puffs. 1970, Western Writers of America, Spurs West, page 111
      Choppy waves cottoned the bay. 1998, George P. Morrill, The Blake Streak: A Tale of War, Mutiny and Love, page 137
      And he quickly changed the subject as the first of the afternoon clouds cottoned the sky and laid shadows across Marlin Hardwick's rustling, winding, scuttling and bird-calling yard. 2000, Elizabeth Stead, The Fishcastle, page 124
   4. To enshroud with a layer of whiteness.
      Fog cottoned the steep, wooded slopes on each side of the lake, and the air was chill and penetrating. 1937, Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, The Improvement Era - Volume 40, page 186
      There was no evidence by Thursday of the snowfall that had thickly cottoned 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. 1956, Edwin Gilbert, Native Stone, page 316
      Fog cottoned the roads under a sky like rusted tin. 2009, Brian Ray, Through the Pale Door: A Novel, page 42
      A mist cottoned the hills inland. 2010, Ali Shaw, The Girl with Glass Feet
      She got out and began to wade through the blanket of powder which cottoned the ground. 2018, Sara Saint James, Trust the Night
3. To protect from harsh stimuli, coddle, or muffle.
   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." 1971, Under the Sign of Pisces - Volumes 2-4, page 9
   The violins were muted, the hands were gloved, carpets were unrolled forever under the feet, and the gardens cottoned the sound from the world. 1976, John Tytell, Harold Jaffe, Affinities: A Short Story Anthology
   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. 1978, Robert D. Hare, Daisy Schalling, Psychopathic Behaviour: Approaches to Research, page 324
   Indeed, pragmatism and technicism cottoned the American soul from some of the worst pains of an unmysterious world, although they would later be poor guardians against its encroachment. 1982, Daedalus, page 138
4. To rub or burnish with cotton.
   To oppress one's own workmen, and provide for the workmen of a neighbor — to skin those in charge of one's own interests while cottoning 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. 1912, Ambrose Bierce, The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, page 267
   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. 1934, The Penrose Annual: Review of the Graphic Arts
   The solution has been to unplug the dots — open up the shadow areas — by re-etching, cottoning, and other handwork. 1969, Book Production Industry - Volume 6; Volume 45, page 78

Etymology 2

1560s, either from Welsh cydun, cytun (“agree, coincide”) (cyduno, cytuno), from cyd, 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.

verb

1. To get on with someone or something; to have a good relationship with someone.
   I want to tell you the Dukes, both mother and son, are cottoning to her fast enough 1873, Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald, “Notes of Gold?”, in All the Year Round, page 286
   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’ve cottoned on to his ideas. March 21, 2009, Farhad Manjoo, “A Conference That Starts on Time and Stays on Schedule”, in The New York Times