Other forms: cocoons, cocooned, cocooning
A cocoon is the silk case a caterpillar spins around itself. Spin a cocoon, emerge from the cocoon, wrapped in a cocoon.
Moths spin cocoons and butterflies do not — a butterfly forms a chrysalis, which is a hardened skin rather than spun silk, and the two are constantly confused. Silk comes from unwinding the cocoon of the silkworm, and one cocoon gives an unbroken thread of several hundred metres. Figuratively, a cocoon is a protected place, and to cocoon somebody is to shelter them.
1nouncocoonThe silk case a caterpillar spins around itself.
“Silk comes from the cocoon of the silkworm.”
2verbwrapTo wrap somebody protectively.
“She cocooned the baby in a thick blanket against the cold.”
cocoon is a protective case.
French cocon is a diminutive of coque, a shell, from Latin concha. Conch and cockle come from the same shell.
French
cocon
English, today
cocoon
Built from
From French cocon, a diminutive of coque (“shell”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Insects & Sea Life