cottoning

Verb

cotton (third-person singular simple present cottons, present participle cottoning, simple past and past participle cottoned)

1. (transitive) 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, W. E. B. Griffin, The Majors, →ISBN, page 52
   1. (transitive) 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....1838, William Newton, The London Journal of Arts and Sciences, and Repertory of Patent Inventions, page 8
   2. (transitive) 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
   3. (transitive) 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...1937, Chambers's Journal, page 399
   4. (transitive) 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
   5. (transitive, 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

See all 30 meanings of cotton