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Cotton on   /kˈɑtən ɑn/   Listen
Cotton on

verb
1.
Understand, usually after some initial difficulty.  Synonyms: catch on, get it, get onto, get wise, latch on, tumble, twig.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cotton on" Quotes from Famous Books



... Swett was now put into the cabin, and Jack Pugh and myself were sent regularly to duty before the mast. We lived in the steerage, and had cabin fare; but, otherwise, had the fortunes of foremast Jacks. Our freight was wheat in the lower hold, flour betwixt decks, and cotton on deck. The ship was very deep. Our crew was good, but both our mates ...
— Ned Myers • James Fenimore Cooper

... in the last bale of cotton the Carolina could stow: the water was now level with her gunwale; indeed, amidships it was flowing over. We had still one hundred and fifty miles to perform of our journey in darkness, with upwards of a thousand bales of cotton on board: such a strange motley scene as our cabin presented at bed-time it would be hard to describe; our provisions held out pretty well however, and all were disposed good-humouredly to bear our ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power

... The fine and long-stapled jute is reserved for the export trade, for which it bears a comparatively high price; the residue is spun and woven by these classes as a domestic manufacture; it is made into gunny-cloth, which is circulated through the globe, forms the bagging for our corn, wheat, and cotton on their voyage to distant ports, and finally makes its ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various

... healthy excitement in view of the stirring event which was likely to transpire before the lapse of many hours; and doubtless some of the men were moved by the prospect of prize-money, not only from the proceeds of the sale of the steamer they were chasing, but from the full freight of cotton on board of the schooner, the deck load of which had been noted ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic

... Manufactures must pause till agriculture overtakes. Steam-machinery applied to agriculture is the only thing that can correct this disproportion, and this is what we are going to make. The world is not to be much longer dependent for its cotton on the compulsory labor of the Dark Ages, nor for its flax and corn on blistered free hands or overworked cattle. The laborer, in either section of our country, will be transformed into an ingenious gentleman ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... declared Miss Cobb. "Don't you think I know my own, with L. C. in white cotton on the band, and my own darning in the knee where I slipped on the ice? And more than that, Minnie, where those tights are, my ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... of a portion of the sunbeams is invested in building the trees. Without the sun the reduction of the carbonic acid cannot be effected, and an amount of sunlight is consumed exactly equivalent to the molecular work done. Thus trees are formed; thus the cotton on which Mr. Bazley discoursed last Friday is produced. I ignite this cotton, and it flames; the oxygen again unites with the carbon; but an amount of heat equal to that produced by its combustion was sacrificed by the sun to form that bit ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall



Words linked to "Cotton on" :   apprehend, grok, grasp, comprehend, savvy, get the picture, twig, compass, dig



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