Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use cotton in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, adjective, verb

Cotton means a soft, fibrous, usually white substance consisting of fine hairs, especially the substance around the seeds of a plant of genus Gossypium. Example: “This year's cotton harvest was great but the corn harvest was disastrous.”

Examples of cotton by meaning

nounA 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, Chuen-Yan David Lai, “Developments of Cotton Cultivation in Sinkiang”, in Pacific Viewpoint, volume 17, number 2, →DOI, archived from...

nounTextiles made from the fiber harvested from a cotton plant, especially Gossypium.

  • 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: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

nounAn item of clothing made from such textiles.

  • The old man wore the simplest cottons, faded from long use and countless washings.1987 October, Galen Rowell, “Baltistan: The 20th Century Comes to Shangri-la”, in National Geographic, volume 172, number 4, page 526

nounA 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 February 12, “Safer Sex and Drug Use Guidelines”, in Gay Community News, volume 16, number 30, page 12

verbTo 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
  • Eyes closed, ears cottoned, the mind produces its own interior messages.1990, Seymour W. Itzkoff, The Making of the Civilized Mind, page 69

verbTo fill with a wad of cotton.

  • 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

verbTo 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.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.1953 June 25, 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.1965, Amateur Gardening - Volume 82, page 199

verbTo 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
  • Taylor said he reckoned the cost of cottoning at twelve and one-half cents per yard.1912, National Painters Magazine - Volume 39, page 657

More sentences with cotton

  • This year's cotton harvest was great but the corn harvest was disastrous.From the entry harvest
  • When the carnival came to town, every one wanted some cotton candy.From the entry carnival
  • The students presented a brief minidrama about the invention of the cotton gin.From the entry minidrama
  • In those days, cotton mills were big business around here, and so was tanning of hides.From the entry big business
  • After 3 hours at the all-you-can-eat buffet I was totally touching cotton.From the entry touch cotton
  • My parents bought us each a stick of cotton candy.From the entry stick
  • She bought cotton thread to use to make string.From the entry string
  • A small amount of cotton can be stuffed into the nose to stanch the flow of blood if necessary.From the entry stanch
  • Gossypium barbadense is a fine long-stapled variety of cotton.From the entry stapled
  • Before the advent of synthetics, textile manufacturing depended almost exclusively on wool, silk and fiber plants such as cotton and flax.From the entry fiber plant
  • A factory that makes cotton and other wovens.From the entry woven
  • He wore a white cotton kurta to the festival.From the entry kurta
  • For quotations using this term, see Citations:bless someone's cotton socks.From the entry bless someone's cotton socks
  • It's a machine to chop out cotton fields.From the entry chop out
  • They spin the cotton into thread.From the entry spin
  • Cotton was increasingly shipped by rail.From the entry by rail
  • I started out by spinning a full bobbin of natural white cotton in the normal Z-spun direction.2026, Tom Knisley, “Exploring S- and Z-Twist”, in Spin Off, volume L, number 1, page 42. From the entry spin
  • "It offers more economic benefits than cotton and wheat," said Zhu Yubao, Party chief of Yengiostang Township.2020 September 30, “Xinjiang county smells success in marigold business”, in China Internet Information Center, archived from the original…. From the entry Yengiostang
  • David Burns, 40, has sidonglobophobia – a fear of cotton wool.2018 October 28, “Sidonglobophobia sufferer dismissed over collegial ‘banter’ wins £9,000 payout”, in Scottish Legal News, retrieved 02…. From the entry sidonglobophobia
  • I, on the other hand, have sidonglobophobia, or an intense fear of cotton balls.2017 July 19, Crystal Ponti, “Investigating My Lifelong Phobia of Cotton Balls”, in The Cut. From the entry sidonglobophobia
  • 'A word to the wise—don't wrap him in cotton wool, because he'll resent it later.2015 October 1, Kate Hardy, Falling for Mr. December, Harlequin, →ISBN. From the entry wrap in cotton wool
  • Most cotton is sold as top, requiring only predrafting prior to spinning.2014, W. J. Johnson, Yarn Works: How to Spin, Dye, and Knit Your Own Yarn, page 32. From the entry top
  • MB is a widely used dye in dying cotton, wool, acrylic and silk.2014, ANS Rao, VT Venkatarangaiah, “The effect of cathode materials on indirect electrochemical oxidation of methyl orange, malachite…. From the entry antibiodegradable
  • The outer back was also covered in a new layer of brushed cotton.2012, Dinah Eastop, Kathryn Gill, Upholstery Conservation: Principles and Practice, page 40. From the entry brushed
  • Currently, cotton is crop rotated with winter wheat in Uzbekistan after cotton is harvested.2012 November 27, Michael R. Edelstein, Astrid Cerny, Abror Gadaev, Disaster by Design: The Aral Sea and Its Lessons for Sustainability…. From the entry crop-rotate
  • I looked up from the thick cotton mat, unsure where my legs were.2011, Devon W. Carbado, Dwight A. McBride, Donald Weise, Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction…. From the entry monk

Meaning of cotton

  1. noun A soft, fibrous, usually white substance consisting of fine hairs, especially the substance around the seeds of a plant of genus Gossypium.
  2. noun Any similar soft, fibrous, white substance of fine hairs, of any origin.
  3. noun A plant of genus Gossypium, used as a source of such fiber.

Full definition of cotton

Questions about cotton in a sentence

How do you use cotton in a sentence?
Cotton is used as a noun, adjective and verb. For example: “This year's cotton harvest was great but the corn harvest was disastrous.”
What is a short sentence with cotton?
“Cotton was increasingly shipped by rail.”
What does cotton mean?
Cotton means a soft, fibrous, usually white substance consisting of fine hairs, especially the substance around the seeds of a plant of genus Gossypium.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cotton (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use cotton in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/cotton. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.