long-staple cotton
- noun
- Specialized
:
algodón de fibra larga
- Many textile manufacturers prefer long-staple cotton for its ability to produce smoother and stronger fabrics.
Examples
-
Changes in the international market undercut demand for Egyptian long-staple cotton, the country's main source of foreign revenue.
Academic text (1995) -
My Bombas socks are extra long staple cotton and they are the key to feeling light on my feet all summer long.
-
Muhammad Ali also began the production of long-staple cotton.
Academic text (1999) -
Why else had the Italians bought enough of his light long-staple cotton for forty thousand uniforms?
Fiction book (1999) -
The farmer decided to plant long-staple cotton because of its superior quality and strength.
-
Due to its durability, long-staple cotton is often used in high-end clothing and bedding.
Antonyms
- Specialized
A kind of cotton with short fibers that people use to make coarse cloth
How Long
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
long-staple + cotton
The meaning is compositionally built from 'long' + 'staple' modifying 'cotton', so the idea of cotton with relatively long fibers follows directly from the constituent words. However, 'staple' here has a specialized textile sense ('fiber length') that many B1 learners may not know, so understanding often requires some domain knowledge despite the transparent-looking structure.
Etymology
Long-staple cotton comes from the words long and staple, meaning cotton with long fibers or threads. Because these longer fibers make softer, stronger cloth, the phrase came to mean 'high-quality cotton'.
