قطن

Where it comes from

Borrowed from Aramaic כִיתָנָא / כִיתָאנָא (kittānā) and its Classical Syriac equivalent ܟܶܬܳܢܳܐ (kettānā), both meaning “flax; linen," from which also Arabic كَتّان (kattān, “flax”). The same Aramaic root also gives rise to the apparel-name Aramaic כִּיתּוּנָא (kittōnā) and the Syriac forms ܟܝܬܘܢܐ (kettōnā), and ܟܘܬܝܢܐ (kuttīnā, kottīnā, “tunic”), especially the Classical Syriac byform ܟܘܬܘܢܐ (kuttōnā, kottōnā).

Although Arabic قُطْن (quṭn) now denotes “cotton,” the absence of a direct Aramaic form meaning cotton suggests that it reflects an emphatic or dialectal variant of the same root - perhaps paralleling Ugaritic 𐎖𐎉 (qṭ, “flax”), which has not survived in written sources but was likely spoken in Western Aramaic dialects around ancient Ugarit.