EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR COTTON
Two of us were going in company, each with a load of cotton.
The cotton was thrown overboard as fast as we could, and what the men could not start the seas did.
Here I quarrelled with the captain about some cotton wick, and I threw up my situation.
We got to the latter port without accident, and took in a cargo of cotton.
There is no account of indigo, and the cultivation of cotton had not commenced.
It was in America that the first cotton corner was conceived.
Then its heads or pods open into five parts, and expose their cotton to view.
There had been a great fire in the cotton green towards Colaba.
Guide it to its place with the thumb, and run it from side to side of the reel like cotton on a spool.
No end of cotton and needles had to be sold to get such a sum together!
WORD ORIGIN
late 13c., from Old French coton (12c.), ultimately (via Provençal, Italian, or Old Spanish) from Arabic qutn, a word perhaps of Egyptian origin. Philip Miller of the Chelsea Physic Garden sent the first cotton seeds to American colony of Georgia in 1732. Also ultimately from the Arabic word, Dutch katoen, German Kattun, Provençal coton, Italian cotone, Spanish algodon, Portuguese algodão. Cotton gin is recorded from 1794 (see gin (n.2)).