Definition of "cotton"
cotton1
noun
usually uncountable, plural cottons
(textiles) The textile made from the fiber harvested from a cotton plant, especially Gossypium.
Quotations
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
verb
third-person singular simple present cottons, present participle cottoning, simple past and past participle cottoned
(transitive) To provide with cotton.
Quotations
Quotations
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
Quotations
(horticulture) To wrap with a protective layer of cotton fabric.
Quotations
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
Quotations
(tar and cotton) To cover with cotton bolls over a layer of tar (analogous to tar and feather )
Quotations
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
To raise a nap, providing with a soft, cottony texture.
Quotations
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
To develop a porous, cottony texture.
Quotations
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
To enshroud with a layer of whiteness.
Quotations
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
To protect from harsh stimuli, coddle, or muffle.
Quotations
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
To rub or burnish with cotton.
Quotations
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
cotton2
verb
third-person singular simple present cottons, present participle cottoning, simple past and past participle cottoned
(Should we move, merge or split(+) this sense?) To get on with someone or something; to have a good relationship with someone.
Quotations
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.
2009 March 21, Farhad Manjoo, “A Conference That Starts on Time and Stays on Schedule”, in The New York Times