lint

American  

[lint] / lɪnt /

noun

1. minute shreds or ravelings of yarn; bits of thread.

2. staple cotton fiber used to make yarn.

3. cotton waste produced by the ginning process.

4. a soft material for dressing wounds, procured by scraping or otherwise treating linen cloth.

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lint British  

/ lɪnt /

noun

1. an absorbent cotton or linen fabric with the nap raised on one side, used to dress wounds, etc

2. shreds of fibre, yarn, etc

3. staple fibre for making cotton yarn

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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

“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

As he put it, “The speed of light is never going to go out of style. Gravity, lint, signs, time itself, is not going to go out of style.”

From Salon • May 22, 2024

Heck, we can’t even make a sandwich without one of us making sure he hasn’t eaten another computer cord or a wad of dryer lint.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 3, 2024

A hairdresser tamed a few stray wisps from her trademark onion-shaped hairstyle as another assistant ran a lint roller over her embroidered black jacket.

From New York Times • Jan. 19, 2024

If he chanced to meet his mother in the hall, she would not look at him but rather study the fleecy spheres of lint that drifted along the floor in her son’s wake.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

Related Words

• cord
• cotton
• filament
• silk
• strand
• string
• wire
• wool
• yarn