cotton wool
noun
Simple meaning
Soft, absorbent cotton for medical or cosmetic use, protective padding.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kahtuhnwuulSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɑtənˈwʊl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uk
Soft, absorbent cotton for medical or cosmetic use, protective padding, etc.
US
Soft silky fibers from cotton plants in their raw state
us
Raw fibers of cotton before being processed.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: Soft, absorbent cotton for medical or cosmetic use, protective padding, etc.
Used this way, cotton wool is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Medicine/healthcare
- Science
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.