red silk cotton
- noun
- Indian
:
algodón de seda rojo
- Because red silk cotton is less resilient than kapok, it is rarely used for life jackets.
Examples
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The stuffing inside the pillow was made of red silk cotton.
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Villagers harvested red silk cotton annually from the native trees.
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The red silk cotton is often used in traditional crafts.
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I bought some red silk cotton for my sewing project.
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The stuffing inside the pillow was made of red silk cotton.
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Villagers harvested red silk cotton annually from the native trees.
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I bought some red silk cotton for my sewing project.
Synonyms
A soft, light fiber from the kapok tree that people use to fill pillows and keep things warm
Soft, silky plant fiber from a tropical tree that fills pillows and insulates
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'red', 'silk' and 'cotton' signal a type of fiber or plant product, so a B1 learner who knows the words would likely infer it refers to a cotton-like or silky fiber of a red variety. However, the specific botanical sense (fiber from the red silk-cotton tree and its relation to kapok) is technical and not fully predictable from the constituents, so prior exposure is needed for the exact meaning.
Etymology
Red silk cotton comes from a tree with red flowers whose seed pods hold a soft, silk-like fiber that looks like cotton. People used this fluffy material as cheap 'stuffing', so the name now means the tree's fiber or the 'stuffing' made from it.
