Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(drugs) cocaine, heroin and morphine, esp. as saturating the cotton filter used in the injecting process; definitions in cits. 1949 & 1959 are incorrect.

1938		D. Maurer ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 101/1: cotton brothers. The cotton used by addicts; occurs in such phrases as ‘Where are the Cotton Brothers?’ which is one way of asking for the cotton, q.v. Charley Cotton is cotton saturated with cocaine solution; M. Cotton is that containing morphine solution; H. Cotton is that containing heroin.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 59: cotton brothers The cotton placed in an opium cooker as a filter.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore 35: Cotton brothers – A piece of cotton [...] used by addicts to filter the dissolved narcotics.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 6: Cotton brothers — Cocaine, heroin and morphine.

(drugs) a very high temperature that can result from accidentally introducing cotton fibres, impregnated with narcotics, into the bloodstream.

1972		Smith & Gay Heroin in Perspective 200: Cotton Fever. Severe chills and fever from using old cottons.
1975		Hardy & Cull Drug Lang. and Lore.
2001		ONDCP Street Terms 6: Cotton fever — Critically high temperature associated with accidentally injecting cotton fibers into blood stream.

(US drugs) one who breaks open benzedrine inhalers and eats the drug-soaked cotton they contain.

1967

M. Braly On the Yard (2002) 70: The prisoner who held the power to regulate the traffic in inhalers would have to talk about it, floor show, and let it be known that he was Big Dad to all cotton freaks.

(US drugs) a poor user’s addiction, sustained by boiling cotton filters; def. in cit. 1949 is spurious.

1938		D. Maurer ‘Lang. of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in Lang. Und. (1981) 101/1: cotton-habit. A small, irregular habit which a very poor addict [...] may support by begging the cottons from more prosperous addicts.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 59: cotton habit Addict who has a hypodermic syringe but too poor to afford a capsule, so clubs with another addict who has the price of a capsule.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
1969		R.R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z (1970).

(US drugs) one who is reduced to begging more prosperous addicts for their used cotton in the hope of extracting some narcotic residue from it.

1936		D. Maurer ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 1 in AS XI:2 89/2: cotton-shooters. Down-and-out addicts who hang around other addicts in order to pick up the cottons which they discard. If they collect enough cottons they can soak out the residue of narcotic which remains, and eventually get enough for a shot.
1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1959		J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.
1981		D.E. Miller Bk of Jargon 340: cotton shooter: One who collects and shoots the residual heroin from leftover cottons.

(US drugs) to ask for another addict’s used cotton in the hope of extracting some narcotic residue.

1938

D. Maurer ‘Argot of the Und. Narcotic Addict’ Pt 2 in AS XIII:3 180/2: To ask for the cotton To borrow another addict’s cotton in order to squeeze out the residue of narcotics for a very small shot.

(US drugs) reduced to boiling one’s saved-up cottons to extract a last residue of heroin/morphine.

1959

J.E. Schmidt Narcotics Lingo and Lore.

(US drugs) to soak a used cotton in order to strain out the water/heroin residue.

1990

S. Morgan Homeboy 64: ‘I’ll do you good if you lemme pound your cotton.’ By which he meant add more water in her cooker and strain the residue from her cotton, something like percolating coffee grounds a second time.

Manchester.

1854		Preston Chron. 16 Dec. 7/3: There is but one Manchester [...] The real pillars of Great Britain are the chimneys of Cottonopolis.
1857		Blackwood’s Edinburgh Mag. Nov. 593: [headline] Cambria and Cottonopolis.
1868		Dly Ohio Statesman (Columbus, OH) 23 June 1/4: Racing has for a century been highly popular in Cottonopolis [...] The course [...] is only about two miles from the Manchester Exchange.
1870		‘Cecil Day’ Club and the Drawing-room 325: It would be, doubtless, easy for us to comment upon certain social eccentricities observable in some of the drawing-rooms of Cottonopolis. [...] Mrs. Chump, wife of Mr. Chump, head partner in the great Manchester cotton-spinning firm of Chump, Chornder, and Co., may scarcely have the manners [etc.].
1870		Dly Phoenix (Columbia, SC) 30 Sept. 2/5: Let Porkopolis see what Cottonopolis can do.
1873		Sl. Dict. 130: Cottonopolis Manchester. A term much in use among the reporters of the sporting press engaged in the locality.
1888		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 25 Dec. 15/3: The former [...] is a native of England, having been born in the city of Manchester, (the world’s cottonopolis) .
1889		Music Hall & Theatre Rev. 23 Feb. 28/1: The Manchester ‘Empire’ is being rapidly pushed ahead. Till this project was started [...] Cottonopolis was badly off indeed in the music hall line.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 14 Sept. 2/2: [H]e footed his way on the dirt road to Manchester [...] Calling at an establishment in Cottonopolis [etc].
1893		Liverpool Echo 16 Mar. 3/2: The conscript fathers of Cottonopolis have elected to ‘fling the heft after the hatchet,’ to the tune of the two further millions required.
1899		‘Pot’ & ‘Swears’ Scarlet City 348: He entered a dog once for the Cottonopolis handicap.
1904		Manchester Courier 12 Feb. 2/5: It will then be possible to travel from Cottonopolis to the Mersey city by electric car.
1907		Manchester Courier 22 Mar. 3/7: A marriage will take place between one of the leading members of the Women’s Social and Political Union [...] and a young University student of Cottonopolis.
1910		Bennington Eve. Banner (VT) 12 Mar. 3/2: James A. Patten, the Chicago cotton and grain speculator, was hooted off the Manchester exchange [...] Patten’s connection with the rise in the price of cotton [...] was responsible for the outbust of hostility toward him at the ‘cottonopolis’.
1919		Western Times (Devon) 5 Nov. 4/2: The Shah in Cottonopolis. The Shah of Persia arrived in Manchester punctually at eight minutes past two.
1930		Hull Dly Mail 20 Feb. 8/4: Busy in Cottonopolis. [...] Judge: You are very busy people in Manchester?

(US) a derog. term for a Southerner.

1970

FBI [ABC-TV] Why, you thick-headed cotton-chopper! Just how far do you think you’d get on that job without me [HDAS].

(US black) the Southern states, esp. as seen by those blacks who had moved north during the previous decade.

1994

C. Major Juba to Jive 116: Cotton Curtain, n. (1950s) The South.

see separate entries.

see separate entry.

see separate entries.

(US) an attractive young woman.

1974

B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water 11: I was in high school and I got strung out behind some old cottontail, you know.

see separate entries.

(US) to be doomed.

1971

N. Sheehan Arnheiter Affair 220: ‘You’ve bought it, you bastard,’ he said to himself [...] ‘You’ve had the cotton. They finally caught up with you.’.