A lightweight cotton fabric, sometimes spelled 'catton' or 'cattan,' historically used for affordable clothing.
From Arabic 'qutun' (cotton), which traveled to English through trade routes in the medieval period. The word reflects Europe's early encounters with cotton as an imported luxury fabric from the Islamic world.
The word 'cotton' itself comes from Arabic, and 'cattan' is a cousin showing how trade languages create linguistic cousins across Europe—Italian has 'cotone,' Spanish has 'algodón'!
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