Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A narrow bed, especially one made of canvas on a collapsible frame.
  • noun Chiefly British A crib.
  • noun A small house.
  • noun A protective covering or sheath.
  • abbreviation cotangent

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An abbreviation of cotangent.
  • noun An effeminate person.
  • noun A little boat.
  • noun Refuse wool.
  • noun A fleece of wool matted together; a lock of wool or hair clung together.
  • noun A small house; a cottage; a hut; a mean habitation.
  • noun A small bed or crib for a child to sleep in; also, a portable bed formed of canvas, webbing, or other material fastened to a light frame, often made cross-legged to permit folding up. Also called cot-bed.
  • noun Nautical, a swinging bed or hammock of canvas, stiffened by a wooden frame, and having upright sides of canvas to protect the sleeper.
  • noun A leather cover for a finger, used to protect the finger when it is injured or sore, or to shield it from injury, as in dissecting; a finger-stall.
  • noun A sheath or sleeve, as the clothing for a drawing-roller in a spinning-frame.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A small house; a cottage or hut.
  • noun A pen, coop, or like shelter for small domestic animals, as for sheep or pigeons; a cote.
  • noun A cover or sheath. See also finger cot.
  • noun A small, rudely-formed boat.
  • noun (Arch.) See under Bell.
  • noun A sleeping place of limited size; a little bed; a cradle; a piece of canvas extended by a frame, used as a bed.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US A simple bed, especially one for portable or temporary purposes; a camp bed.
  • noun nautical A wooden bed frame, slung by its corners from a beam, in which officers slept before the introduction of bunks.
  • noun A crib (child's bed).
  • noun A finger cover used to prevent static discharge.
  • noun archaic A cottage or small homestead.
  • noun A symbol of the trigonometric function cotangent.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a small bed that folds up for storage or transport
  • noun a sheath worn to protect a finger
  • noun baby bed with high sides made of slats

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Hindi khāṭ, from Sanskrit khaṭvā, from Tamil kaṭṭu, to bind, tie.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Hindi खाट (khāṭ)

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Examples

Comments

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  • This word, as contrasted with caught, is somewhat famous among linguists. See here for the story.

    April 11, 2008

  • Also see here for a map of the cot/caught merger in the US.

    April 11, 2008