Emily Dickinson Lexicon

COT'TON, n. [cot'n; Fr. coton; It. cotone; Ir. cadas; Sp. algodon, the cotton-plant or the wool; coton, printed cotton; Port. algodam; D. katoen; W. cotwm, cotton, dag-wool, as if from cot, a short tail. But it seems to be an Arabic word, قٌطْنٌ kotun, corresponding with a word in Ethiopic and Syriac, which signifies to be thin or fine. And with a common dialectical variation, it may coincide with the first syllable of gossypium and gossamer.]

1. A soft downy substance, resembling fine wool, growing in the capsules or pods of Gossypium, the cotton-plant. It is the material of a large proportion of cloth for apparel and furniture.
2. Cloth made of cotton. Lavender-cotton. The popular name of a genus of plants, Santolina, of several species; shrubs cultivated in gardens. One species, the chamæcyparissus, or Abrotanum fæmina, female southern-wood, is vulgarly call brotany. – Encyc. Philosophic cotton, flowers of zink, which resemble cotton. Silk-cotton tree, the popular name of a genus of plants, the Bombax, growing to a great size in the Indies, and producing a kind of cotton in capsules. Encyc.