cotton on
Britishverb
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to perceive the meaning (of)
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to make use (of)
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.
The precocious girls soon cotton on to the headmistress’s ruse and parry her appeals to dish on Miss Brodie.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 23, 2025
Small tomato plants sprouted in tidy rows on one side of the road and pima cotton on the other.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2023
England has at least managed to cotton on to the idea that the referees are not to blame for this mess, and nor are their colleagues sitting in the video replay room at Stockley Park.
From New York Times ● Oct. 2, 2020
Every few months, Google would cotton on to the group’s tactics and begin blocking its messages.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 13, 2018
First, I pulled a striped green seersucker for my center pentagon, put a piece of strawberry-print cotton on the longest side, and kept going until I had my own perfectly mixed-up square.
From "Hope Springs" by Jaime Berry
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.
