ETYM French coton, Spanish algodon the cotton plant and its wool, coton printed cotton, cloth, from Arabic qutun, alqutun, cotton wool. Related to Acton, Hacqueton.
Tropical and subtropical herbaceous plant of the genus Gossypium of the mallow family Malvaceae. Fibers surround the seeds inside the ripened fruits, or bolls, and these are spun into yarn for cloth.
Cotton production uses 50% of world pesticides and represents 5% of world agricultural output. The fibers are separated from the seeds in a cotton gin. The seeds are used to produce cooking oil and livestock feed, and the pigment gossypol has potential as a male contraceptive in a modified form. Cotton disease (byssinosis), caused by cotton dust, affects the lungs of those working in the industry.
Transgenic cotton (with a foreign gene added to it by genetic engineering) was developed in the US 1992. The biotechnology company responsible, Agracetus, was granted a controversial patent entitling it to a royalty on every genetically engineered cotton seed till 2008. This effectively gives one company control over much of the research and development of the fourth largest crop in the US, though the patent office announced 1994 that it intended to revoke the patent.
1. Erect bushy mallow plant or small tree bearing bolls containing seeds with many long hairy fibers; SYN. cotton plant.
2. Fabric woven from cotton fibers.
3. Silky fibers from cotton plants in their raw state; SYN. cotton wool.
4. Thread made of cotton fibers.

(1786-1866) English inventor, financier, and philanthropist who in 1864 invented a knitting machine for the production of hosiery. This machine had a straight-bar frame which automatically made fully fashioned stockings knitted flat and sewn up the back.
Cotton was born in Leyton, Essex, and self-educated. In 1807 he was admitted as a partner in the firm of Huddart and Company in E London, which manufactured a cordage-making machine designed by hydrographer and inventor Joseph Huddart. Cotton published a memoir of Huddart with an account of his inventions 1855, and gave money for the building of schools, churches, and lodging houses in the East End of London.
In 1821 Cotton was elected a director of the Bank of England, and was its governor 1843–46. He invented an automatic weighing machine for sovereigns.

(1571-1631) English antiquary. At his home in Westminster he built up a fine collection of manuscripts and coins, many of which had come from the despoiled monasteries. His son Thomas Cotton (1594–1662) added to the library. The collection is now in the British Museum, London.

(1585-1652) English-born American religious leader. In England, his extreme Puritan views led to charges of heterodoxy being filed against him 1633. In the same year, he immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he was named teacher of Boston's First Congregational Church. A powerful force in the colony, he published widely circulated sermons and theological works.
Cotton was born in Derby and educated at Cambridge University. He was named vicar in Boston, Lincolnshire, 1612 before the persecution of Puritans under Charles I forced him to leave the country.

To take a liking to.