DCHP-1 Online
cottonwood (tree) † Esp. West 
1 n. any of several trees of the genus Populus especially the black poplar, P. trichocarpa.
- 1877 [We went] through thick underbrush of willows and aspens that had sprung up round the burnt spruce and cotton-wood.
- 1959 . . . the house stared with broken windows upon the dying cottonwood trees. . . .
2 n. the wood of such trees.
- 1910 The original Police quarters, built of cotton-wood, roofed with poles, and thatched with grass and earth, were being done away with.
- 1958 . . . the Indians had found [the Douglas fir] too big to handle, and hewed their dugouts and totem poles from the more malleable Red Cedar or [from] Cottonwood.
- 1877 [We went] through thick underbrush of willows and aspens that had sprung up round the burnt spruce and cotton-wood.