Wikipedia says of
cotton: 'The name derives from the Arabic (
al)
qutn قُطْن , which began to be used circa 1400.' But that can't be right, for here's
Pliny the Elder well over a millennium earlier than that: 'ferunt mali
cotonei amplitudine cucurbitas, quae maturitate ruptae ostendunt lanuginis pilas, ex quibus vestes pretioso linteo faciunt' [XII: 10 (21)]. Lewis and Short have
cotonea, 'a plant, wallwort, comfrey, black briony', and
cotinus 'a shrub', which are presumably unconnected with the Arabic.
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