lint
Americannoun
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minute shreds or ravelings of yarn; bits of thread.
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staple cotton fiber used to make yarn.
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cotton waste produced by the ginning process.
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a soft material for dressing wounds, procured by scraping or otherwise treating linen cloth.
noun
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an absorbent cotton or linen fabric with the nap raised on one side, used to dress wounds, etc
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shreds of fibre, yarn, etc
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staple fibre for making cotton yarn
Other Word Forms
- delint verb (used with object)
- lintless adjective
- linty adjective
Etymology
Origin of lint
1325–75; Middle English, variant of linnet; compare Middle French linette linseed, Old English līnet- flax (or flax-field) in līnetwige lintwhite
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.
He waved a tuft of lint in front of my face.
From Literature
Angela picked a piece of lint off her blue skirt and then stood at attention, her back perfectly straight, just like in the training videos.
From Literature
His recycled sandwich resembled a rubber band squashed in lint.
From Literature
Cornelius turned his head slightly as if he was going to answer, but he was only looking at some little bit of lint that had gotten into the tank.
From Literature
I guess that was the last straw—old belly-button lint—because we never did that again.
From Literature
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
