Meaning & use
cotton candy
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountable
A light, fluffy sweet made of spun sugar, usually sold on a stick or in a bag at fairs.
Grammar: Uncountable: some cotton candy; for one portion say a bag or a cone of cotton candy.
Patterns
- a bag of cotton candy
- a stick of cotton candy
The children shared a huge bag of pink cotton candy at the fair.
Cotton candy melts almost instantly on your tongue.
He won a stuffed bear and a stick of cotton candy at the carnival.
Common combinations
- spin cotton candy
- The vendor spun cotton candy onto a paper cone.
- a cone of cotton candy
- She carried a cone of cotton candy through the crowd.
- pink cotton candy
- My daughter always asks for pink cotton candy.
- cotton candy machine
- We rented a cotton candy machine for the birthday party.
- sticky cotton candy
- His hands were sticky from the cotton candy.
Synonyms and how they differ
- candy floss
- This is the British term for the same sweet and sounds foreign in the United States.
- fairy floss
- This is the Australian name for the same treat.
- spun sugar
- Spun sugar is the general material and can also mean fine decorative threads on desserts, not always the fairground snack.
Word family
Commonly confused: cotton candy or cotton wool?
cotton candy vs cotton wool
Cotton wool is the soft fiber used for cleaning, not a food, though cotton candy looks like it.
Practice
At the county fair, the boy asked for pink ___ on a paper cone.
Choose one answer.
Cotton candy is the fluffy spun-sugar treat. Cotton wool is not food, and the other options are different things.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cotton candy”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.