cotton
[verb]
Synonyms: baby, cater (to), cocker, coddle, cosset, humor, indulge, mollycoddle, pamper, spoil, fawn, apple-polish, bootlick, brownnose, cower, cringe, grovel, honey (up), kowtow, toady

[TahlilGaran] English Synonym Dictionary ▲

Cotton, Henry
(1907–87), a British golfer who won several important competitions in the 1930s and 1940s. After he stopped playing he wrote about golf for the newspapers and also became a golf course architect.

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲

I. cot‧ton¹ W3 /ˈkɒtn $ ˈkɑːtn/ noun [uncountable]
[Date: 1300-1400; Language: Old French; Origin: coton, from Arabic qutn]

1. cloth or thread made from the white hair of the cotton plant:
a white cotton shirt
Made from 100% cotton.

2. a plant with white hairs on its seeds that are used for making cotton cloth and thread

3. British English thread used for sewing:
a needle and cotton
a cotton reel (=small round tube which cotton thread is wound around)

4. American English cotton wool

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲

II. cotton² verb
[Date: 1800-1900; Origin: cotton 'to be successful' (16-19 centuries), perhaps from cotton (of cloth) 'to form a soft surface' (15-19 centuries), from ⇒ cotton¹]
cotton on phrasal verb informal
to begin to understand something ⇒ realize:
It took me a while to cotton on.
cotton on to
Sarah soon cottoned on to what he was trying to do.
cotton to somebody/something phrasal verb American English informal
to begin to like a person, idea etc Synonym : take to:
I didn’t cotton to her at first, but she’s really nice.

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲

cotton
noun
ADJ. pure a pure cotton T-shirt
light, thin shivering in her thin cotton nightdress
fine | rough | raw | printed | mercerized | sewing
QUANT. reel (= pf cotton thread) | bale, bolt (= both of fabric)
VERB + COTTON grow | pick
COTTON + NOUN thread | bud, wool | field, plantation | industry, manufacturing | mill | manufacturer | reel

[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary ▲

cotton

thin/light cotton
a thin cotton dress
fine cotton (=thin and good quality)
For summer, fine cotton is more comfortable.
pure cotton (=not mixed with any other materials)
shirts made from pure cotton
raw cotton (=natural, and not prepared for use)
They imported raw cotton from America.
50%/100 per cent etc cotton
These lightweight trousers are made from 100% cotton.
a cotton shirt/dress/jacket etc
Egyptian cotton sheets are very expensive here.
cotton cloth/fabric
cotton cloth from India
cotton thread (=long thin cotton string that you use for sewing)
I need some dark blue cotton thread.
the cotton industry/trade
The cotton industry began to boom in the 1780s.
a cotton field/farmer/plantation etc
Texas produced half of the US cotton crop.
a cotton mill (=factory where cotton is made into thread or cloth)
be made of/from cotton
The fabric is made of cotton or wool.

[TahlilGaran] Collocations Dictionary ▲

cotton
̈ɪˈkɔtn
See: on top of the world also sitting on high cotton

[TahlilGaran] English Idioms Dictionary ▲