A cotton gin (short for cotton engine) is a machine that quickly and easily separates the cotton fibers from the seeds, a job previously done by hand. These seeds are either used again to grow more cotton or, if badly damaged, are disposed of. It uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through the screen, while brushes continuously remove the loose cotton lint to prevent jams.

The gin method for seeding cotton can be traced back as far as the first century AD. The earliest versions consisted of a single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. Evidence for this type of gin has been found in Africa, Asia, and North America.

The first documentation of the cotton gin by contemporary scholars is found in the fifth century AD. Visual evidence of the single-roller gin exists in the form of fifth-century Buddhist paintings in the Ajanta Caves in western India. These early gins were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill.

A narrow single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton without crushing the seeds. The design was similar to that of a metate, which was used to grind grain. The earliest history of the cotton gin is ambiguous due to the fact that archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools.

Between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, dual roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the two roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the sixteenth century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by water power.

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