lint

[ lint ]

noun

1. minute shreds or ravelings of yarn; bits of thread.
2. staple cotton fiber used to make yarn.
3. cotton waste produced by the ginning process.
4. a soft material for dressing wounds, procured by scraping or otherwise treating linen cloth.

lint

/ lɪnt /

noun

1. an absorbent cotton or linen fabric with the nap raised on one side, used to dress wounds, etc
2. shreds of fibre, yarn, etc
3. staple fibre for making cotton yarn

Derived Forms

• ˈlinty, adjective

Other Words From

• lintless adjective
• de·lint verb (used with object)

Word History and Origins

Origin of lint¹

1325–75; Middle English, variant of linnet; compare Middle French linette linseed, Old English līnet- flax (or flax-field) in līnetwige lintwhite

Word History and Origins

Origin of lint¹

C14: probably from Latin linteus made of linen, from līnum flax

Example Sentences

On the fifth floor, inspectors said, inmates were triple-bunked in a hot cell block where the air conditioners were filled with lint.

From Los Angeles Times

As he put it, “The speed of light is never going to go out of style. Gravity, lint, signs, time itself, is not going to go out of style.”

From Salon

To the untrained eye, it looks like a speck of black lint, not much larger than the tip of a pin.

From New York Times

“We have a couch pet hair remover — a reusable manual lint roller — and we’ve given up on black clothing surviving without her presence being known,” Knox says.

From Seattle Times

A product safety engineer said the lint filter should be cleared regularly.

From BBC

Related Words

• cord
• cotton
• filament
• silk
• strand
• string
• wire
• wool
• yarn