1. A soft downy substance, resembling fine wool, growing in the capsules or pods of a shrub, called the cotton-plant. It is the material of a large proportion of cloth for apparel and furniture.

2. Cloth made of cotton.

Lavender-cotton, a genus of plants, Santolina, of several species; shrubs cultivated in gardens. One species, the chamoecyparyssus or abrotanum foemina, female southernwood, is vulgarly called brotany.

Philosophic cotton, flowers of zink, which resemble cotton.

Silk-cotton tree, a genus of plants, the Bombax, growing to a great size in the Indies, and producing a kind of cotton in capsules.

, v.i.

1. To rise with a nap.

2. To cement; to unite with; a cant word.