Cotton Belt

American

noun

(sometimes lowercase) the part of the southern U.S. where cotton is grown, originally Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi, but now often extended to include parts of Texas and California.

cotton belt British

noun

a belt of land in the southeastern US that specializes in the production of cotton

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of Cotton Belt

An Americanism dating back to 1870–75

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"This decision responds directly to the strong advocacy of America's cotton and soybean farmers, particularly growers across the Cotton Belt, who have been clear and consistent about the critical challenges they face without access to this tool for controlling resistant weeds in their growing crop," the EPA said in a statement.

From Barron's

"Our study shows that this virus was actually present in the country's Cotton Belt long before that. We found clear evidence of the virus in samples from 2006 in Mississippi, 2015 in Louisiana, and 2018 in California."

From Science Daily

In many of the areas of the Cotton Belt, slaves were the majority of the population.

From The Wall Street Journal

The co-authors chose communities to study in Appalachia, South Texas and the southern Cotton Belt that were representative from the bottom 200 of their list.

From Los Angeles Times

By 1915, they had spread across the Cotton Belt and wreaked havoc on the crop, leaving families destitute during the Great Depression.

From Washington Post

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023