cotton bolls

Fluffy seed capsules

Cotton bolls are the seed pods of the cotton plant—rounded, protective capsules that split open when mature to reveal the fluffy white fiber inside.

The boll contains both seeds and the cotton lint that will be harvested: Workers moved through the fields picking cotton bolls by hand.

Before mechanical harvesting, picking bolls was grueling labor performed largely by enslaved people and later sharecroppers in the American South.

fiber

spinning

Revolving around an axis

  • weavingInterlacing strands into fabric
  • fluffySoft and light-textured
  • whiteAbsence of pigment

soft · lint · ginned · cellulose · organic · biodegradable · sustainable · renewable · compostable · fibrous

botany

capsule

Enclosed dose container

  • seedpodPlant's reproductive casing
  • burSpiny seed husk
  • carpelSeed-bearing flower organ

flowering · pollination · maturation · angiosperm · shrub · square · bloom · open · split · seeds

history

plantation

Large-scale farming operation

sharecropping · abolition · bondage · oppression · servitude · overseer · slave trade · Middle Passage · Jim Crow · civil rights

harvest

picking

Act of selecting

  • ginningProcessing raw cotton
  • balesTied agricultural packages
  • cropCultivated agricultural plants

yield · fields · harvesters · combines · seasonal · autumn · farmers · plantation · threshing · reaping

Categories
Opposites
processing stage

cotton bollscotton thread

Spun plant fiber strand

cotton fabric · spun yarn · cotton cloth · cotton textiles · cotton yarn

fiber source type

cotton bollssynthetic fibers

Chemically produced textile strands

silk cocoons · polyester · nylon · rayon

Family

cotton, boll, cottons, bolls, cottony, cottoned, cottoning

Familiarity
Top 500,000
Profile
Timeless · Concrete · Everyday, not technical · Rated G