Brush

/bɹʌʃ/ · noun

Meaning

An implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including cleaning, painting, and arranging hair..

Definitions by Sense

1. An implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including cleaning, painting, and arranging hair.
2. The act of brushing something.
3. A piece of conductive material, usually carbon, serving to maintain electrical contact between the stationary and rotating parts of a machine.
4. A brush-like electrical discharge of sparks.
5. (uncountable) Wild vegetation, generally larger than grass but smaller than trees. See shrubland.
6. A short, possibly recurrent encounter or experience.
7. The furry tail of an animal, especially of a fox.
8. (zoology) A tuft of hair on the mandibles.

Example Sentences

She gave her hair a quick brush.

as leaves Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush Fell from their boughs

If there was a sharp point nearby, electricity would stream from it in a luminous brush, a little corposant, and one could blow out candles with the outstreaming “electric wind,” or even get this to turn a little rotor on its pivot.

We broke away toward the north, the tribe howling on our track. Across the open spaces we gained, and in the brush they caught up with us, and more than once it was nip and tuck.

One typical Grecian kiln engorged one thousand muleloads of juniper wood in a single burn. Fifty such kilns would devour six thousand metric tons of trees and brush annually.

brush with death

He has had brushes with communism from time to time.

The usual visual grammar was in place – a carpet in the street, people in paddocks awaiting a brush with something glamorous, blokes with earpieces, birds in frocks of colliding colours that if sighted in nature would indicate the presence of poison.

Synonyms for brush

Antonyms for brush

Related Words

Word Forms

• brushes
• brushing
• brushed

Usage Notes

Choose a synonym only when it preserves the intended meaning, tone, and grammar of the full sentence.

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