How to Use boll in a Sentence

boll

noun
  • An inspector will be sent out to place a boll weevil trap in my yard.
    — Dan Gill, NOLA.com, 22 July 2017
  • Cotton seed is sprouting inside the bolls, and any salvageable lint is stained and of poor quality.
    — Henry Gass, The Christian Science Monitor, 8 Sep. 2017
  • At the Daughters’ memorial building, a design adorns the massive bronze doors — a cotton boll.
    — USA TODAY, 18 Aug. 2017
  • Bluebonnets were named the state flower in 1901, beating out the cotton boll and the cactus.
    — Sarah Bahari, Dallas Morning News, 8 Apr. 2026
  • In China, there has been rain recently on open bolls and there have been some concerns about potential effects on quality.
    — Sj Guest Editorial, Sourcing Journal, 14 Oct. 2025
  • Tross posted about the incident on Facebook last week, including a photo of the boll of cotton that her daughter took home from school.
    — Justin Murphy, USA TODAY, 2 May 2022
  • Standing in his field, Nilakanti watched boll weevils pop up their heads as if in a greeting and then resume their business of eating away his cotton crop.
    — Associated Press, WIRED, 10 Feb. 2003
  • Putting so much water into fattening rice grains and swelling cotton bolls seems a criminal waste of a precious resource that urban areas are crying out for.
    — David Fickling | Bloomberg, Washington Post, 8 July 2019
  • Prior to the storm’s landfall, much of the Louisiana and Mississippi cotton crops were in open boll stage.
    — Jim Foerster, Forbes, 8 Sep. 2021
  • When cotton bolls are cleaned and prepped for spinning, the individual fibers that result are different lengths, diameters and shapes.
    — Sj Studio, Sourcing Journal, 9 Oct. 2025
  • Natchez has attracted tourists to its primo position on the Mississippi River ever since the boll-weevil knocked out its cotton crop.
    — Charlie Hobbs, Condé Nast Traveler, 30 Jan. 2026
  • Rather, the story goes, African-Americans left in 1912 because of the boll weevil or, if there was violence, the Klan.
    — Carol Anderson, New York Times, 28 Sep. 2016
  • As children in the 1960s, Collier and his siblings worked the cotton fields around Black Swamp, lugging burlap sacks up and down long rows and pulling white bolls from between the plants’ needle-like stems.
    — Los Angeles Times, 11 May 2020
  • The bluebonnet has been Texas’ state’s flower since 1901 and beat out the cotton boll and the cactus for that title, according to Texas A&M archives.
    — Dallas News, 11 Apr. 2022
  • As an editor who’s visited factories to learn about the different types of cotton fabric used in clothing and bedding, long-staple cotton is a worthy investment for quality and comfort, as its strands provide a luxurious finish with greater durability compared to short boll fibers.
    — Stacia Datskovska, Footwear News, 21 Aug. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'boll.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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