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
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.
Thirteen billion dollars, beaten by a lint trap.
From MarketWatch • May 21, 2026
“I can’t tell you how many people think their phone is dead because there is pocket lint in the port,” says Wiens.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 21, 2025
He has been but a speck of lint on the Lakers’ lapel, a bit of dust at the end of the Lakers’ bench, a small and irrelevant bystander in the Lakers’ long and arduous journey.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 6, 2025
Gravity, lint, signs, time itself, is not going to go out of style.
From Salon • May 22, 2024
The intimidating figure stared down at me with disdain, as if I were less than a piece of lint on his coat.
From "The Boy on the Wooden Box" by Leon Leyson
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.
