lint

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
lint/lɪnt/

▶noun

• 1 short, fine fibres which separate from cloth or yarn during processing.

  ■ Scottish flax fibres prepared for spinning.

  ■ the fibrous material of a cotton boll.

• 2 a fabric with a raised nap on one side, used for dressing wounds.

– derivatives
linty adjective.

– origin ME lynnet ‘flax prepared for spinning’, perh. from OFr. linette ‘linseed’, from lin ‘flax’.