A Word A Day — cotton

with Anu Garg

cotton

(KOT-uhn)

verb intr.:
1. To become fond of; to get on well together.
2. To come to understand (in the phrase “to cotton to” or “cotton on to”).

Via French and Italian from Arabic qutun (cotton). The idiomatic usage of the term as a verb refers to the mixing of another material, such as wool, with cotton and perhaps from the idea of cotton fiber clinging well to something.

“Marketers and retailers have already cottoned on to the fact that, since the entire culture is defiantly refusing to grow up, parents and children are all now approximately the same age. We’ve got the same music on our iPods.”
Karen von Hahn; I Like to Hang Out With My Teenager; The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Sep 1, 2007.

All high truth is poetry. Take the results of science: they glow with beauty, cold and hard as are the methods of reaching them. -Charles Buxton, brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician (1823-1871)