/ˈkɒt.ən/·noun·Arabic quṭn attested by the 9th century CE; Middle English cotoun first recorded c. 1363.·Established
Origin
From Arabic quṭn via medieval trade routes. Cotton was grown in the Indus Valley from 3000 BCE, but the word is Arabic — spread into European languages by Islamic agricultural expansion. Spanish kept the Arabic article as algodón; French stripped it to coton; German rejected it entirely with Baumwolle.
Definition
A soft, white fibrous substance surrounding the seeds of the cotton plant (Gossypium), widelycultivated and spun into textile fibre, borrowed into English via Old French coton from Arabic quṭn.
The Full Story
ArabicMedieval, c. 9th–11th century CEwell-attested
The English word 'cotton' descends directly from Arabic quṭn (قطن), the standard Arabic term for the cotton plant and its fibre. Arabic quṭn entered the languages of medieval Europe through two primary vectors: the Islamic presence in the Iberian Peninsula (al-Andalus) and Sicily, and the vigorous trade networks of the medieval Mediterranean, where Arab merchants controlled much of the textile commerce. The word moved into Old Spanish as algodón (retaining the Arabic definite article al-), into Italian as cotone, and into Old
Did you know?
The textile trade bequeathed English a hidden geography: muslin from Mosul, damask from Damascus, gauze from Gaza, calico from Calicut, chintz from Hindi chīṃṭ. Read those five words and you have traced a trade route from the Tigris to the Kerala coast — each fabric name a fossil of the merchant world that carried cotton westward.
Gossypium arboreum as early as 3000 BCE — the European word did not travel through Sanskrit or any Indian-language intermediary. The Sanskrit term is kārpāsa (कार्पास), which gave Greek karpasos and Latin carbasus, a wholly separate lexical line. The Arabic route reflects the historical reality that Arab traders mediated the cotton trade between East and West during the early medieval period. Key roots: quṭn (قطن) (Arabic: "cotton plant; raw cotton fibre — the word that named the commodity for Europe"), kārpāsa (कार्पास) (Sanskrit: "cotton plant — a parallel, unrelated etymological line into Greek karpasos and Latin carbasus").
quṭn (قطن)(Arabic (source form))coton(French (borrowed from Arabic))algodón(Spanish (borrowed from Arabic with al- article))cotone(Italian (borrowed from Arabic))katoen(Dutch (borrowed from French))Baumwolle(German (calque: 'tree-wool' — rejected the Arabic borrowing))