Definitions

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

  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of cotton.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • What's more, I kind of cottoned to Jarvis, from the drop of the hat.

    Shorty McCabe Sewell Ford 1907

  • She called next day, and since then I have been very zealous in her service, for she has a look with her eyes like you - in fact, her eyes are like yours, and I 'cottoned' to her on the strength of it.

    Selections from the Letters of Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury to Jane Welsh Carlyle 1892

  • Mr Bradshaw "cottoned" (as he expressed it to Mr Farquhar) to his new candidate at once.

    Ruth Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell 1837

  • I've never "cottoned" well to others thinking they can speak for me, regardless, and I certainly wouldn't pick any of those mouth-breathing morons to do so.

    Bruins Nation 2009

  • I've never "cottoned" well to others thinking they can speak for me, regardless, and I certainly wouldn't pick any of those mouth-breathing morons to do so.

    Bruins Nation 2009

  • The only one of the party to whom he ever "cottoned" was the latest comer, a smoothed-out, blandulose kind of man, who smoked up all his cunning cigars, made sad havoc among his Hollanders of gin, departed from that house in an unexpected manner and his friend's best trousers, in the pockets of which he had bestowed that friend's rarest gems and gold, and is now serving out a term allotted to him in the State Prison, in recognition of the remarkable abilities displayed by him in the character of what the police call a "confidence man."

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 29, March, 1860 Various

  • Zack the reckless, who was always ready at five minutes 'notice to make friends with any living being under the canopy of heaven -- Zack the gregarious, who in his days of roaming the country, before he was fettered to an office stool, had "cottoned" to every species of rustic vagabond, from a traveling tinker to a resident poacher -- at once declared that he would sleep in the offered bed that very night, by way of showing himself worthy of his host's assistance and regard, if worthy of nothing else.

    Hide and Seek Wilkie Collins 1856

  • Local merchants have cottoned on to the daily deal market, because it provides them with a way to advertise without spending money up front.

    Coupon Website Seeks Funds Spencer E. Ante 2011

  • But that may just be because I was nine years old, and at that age I hadn't really cottoned on to the concept of inequality.

    Helen Sharman (Ada Lovelace Day 2010) kisobel 2010

  • (I have never cottoned onto cables and bobbles, but since I lust for that scarf, I have to learn!)

    Kiss me 2009

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