Sekirov Dictionary

cotton

UK /ˈkɒt.n̩/US /ˈkɑt.n̩/

noun 13
verb 14
adjective 1
forms 3
phrases 7

noun13

A fibrous substance.
A soft, fibrous, usually white substance consisting of fine hairs, especially the substance around the seeds of a plant of genus Gossypium.
Any similar soft, fibrous, white substance of fine hairs, of any origin.
•
A small piece of cotton used as a filter when drawing up a drug into a syringe.
- Do not re-use needles; use fresh cottons each time. — 1989
a light, soft material for clothes, which comes from a plant that grows in warm places
A manufactured product of such a substance.
•
An item of clothing made from such textiles.
- 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
Thread of such fiber.
A plant source.
•
A plant of genus Gossypium, used as a source of such fiber.
- K'a-shih has the most extensive cotton-growing area which amounted to 950 000 mou (6.3 million ares) in 1965. — 1976
Any plant that encases its seed in a thin fiber that is harvested and used as a fabric or cloth.
A liking.
(no longer used) A wick of a candle.

verb14

•
To provide with cotton.
- Goddamned fools had cottoned 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. — 1986
•
To get on with someone or something; to have a good relationship with someone.
- What meanes this? doth he dote so much of this strange harlot indeed? now I perceiue how this geare cottens. — 1629
To supply with a cotton wick.
•
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
•
To wrap with a protective layer of cotton fabric.
- I went round and quietly cottoned all the nine holes, and next moring I found all the cottons intact. — 1953
•
To cover walls with fabric.
- The rooms downstairs were cottoned, the doors re-hung, and a counter put in the record office. — 1900
•
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
To make or become cottonlike.
•
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
•
To develop a porous, cottony texture.
- Used at medium to thin consistency to avoid stringing or cottoning and to assure proper spreading characteristics. — 1971
•
To give the appearance of being dotted with cotton balls.
- A fair piece ahead, in answering signal cottoned the sky in rhythmic puffs. — 1970
•
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
•
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
•
To rub or burnish with cotton.
- The solution has been to unplug the dots — open up the shadow areas — by re-etching, cottoning, and other handwork. — 1969

adjective1

Made of cotton.

forms

cottoned · cottoning · cottons

Phrases with cotton

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