Library / English Dictionary

COMB

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of drawing a comb through hair

Example:

his hair needed a comb

Synonyms:

comb; combing

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("comb" is a kind of...):

hair care; haircare; hairdressing (care for the hair: the activity of washing or cutting or curling or arranging the hair)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "comb"):

comb-out; teasing (the act of removing tangles from you hair with a comb)

Derivation:

comb (smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb)

comb (straighten with a comb)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The fleshy red crest on the head of the domestic fowl and other gallinaceous birds

Synonyms:

cockscomb; comb; coxcomb

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("comb" is a kind of...):

crest (a showy growth of e.g. feathers or skin on the head of a bird or other animal)

Holonyms ("comb" is a part of...):

gallinacean; gallinaceous bird (heavy-bodied largely ground-feeding domestic or game birds)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Ciliated comb-like swimming plate of a ctenophore

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("comb" is a kind of...):

plate (any flat platelike body structure or part)

Holonyms ("comb" is a part of...):

comb jelly; ctenophore (biradially symmetrical hermaphroditic solitary marine animals resembling jellyfishes having for locomotion eight rows of cilia arranged like teeth in a comb)

Sense 4

Meaning:

A flat device with narrow pointed teeth on one edge; disentangles or arranges hair

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("comb" is a kind of...):

device (an instrumentality invented for a particular purpose)

Meronyms (parts of "comb"):

tooth (something resembling the tooth of an animal)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "comb"):

currycomb (a square comb with rows of small teeth; used to curry horses)

fine-tooth comb; fine-toothed comb (a comb with teeth set close together)

pocket comb; pocketcomb (a small comb suitable for carrying in a pocket)

Derivation:

comb (smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb)

comb (straighten with a comb)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Any of several tools for straightening fibers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("comb" is a kind of...):

tool (an implement used in the practice of a vocation)

Meronyms (parts of "comb"):

tooth (something resembling the tooth of an animal)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "comb"):

hatchel; heckle (a comb for separating flax fibers)

Derivation:

comb (smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb

Example:

comb the wool

Synonyms:

comb; comb out; disentangle

Classified under:

Verbs of grooming, dressing and bodily care

Hypernyms (to "comb" is one way to...):

groom; neaten (care for one's external appearance)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "comb"):

sleek down; slick; slick down (give a smooth and glossy appearance)

fluff; tease (ruffle (one's hair) by combing the ends towards the scalp, for a full effect)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They comb their hair

Derivation:

comb (the act of drawing a comb through hair)

comb (a flat device with narrow pointed teeth on one edge; disentangles or arranges hair)

comb (any of several tools for straightening fibers)

combing (the act of drawing a comb through hair)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Search thoroughly

Example:

They combed the area for the missing child

Synonyms:

comb; ransack

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "comb" is one way to...):

search (subject to a search)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence examples:

The men comb the area for animals

The men comb for animals in the area

Sense 3

Meaning:

Straighten with a comb

Example:

comb your hair

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "comb" is one way to...):

straighten; straighten out (make straight)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "comb"):

roach (comb (hair) into a roach)

currycomb (clean (a horse) with a currycomb)

hackle; hatchel; heckle (comb with a heckle)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sentence example:

They comb their hair

Derivation:

comb (the act of drawing a comb through hair)

comb (a flat device with narrow pointed teeth on one edge; disentangles or arranges hair)

combing (the act of drawing a comb through hair)

Credits

 Context examples: 

My hair had known no comb or brush since I left London.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound and slightly phosphorescent.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

They may forget how to brush their teeth or comb their hair.

(Alzheimer's Disease, NIH: National Institute on Aging)

There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin—the latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“May have its comb clipped if it make over-much noise,” broke in an Englishman.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Merlin Burrows CEO Bruce Blackburn says his company used satellite data to comb an area that the group believed may have been the location of the thriving city.

(Researchers Claim to Have Found Mythical City of Atlantis in Spain, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The genelmanly man that eats with a fork, ’im what looks like a Corinthian, only that the bridge of ’is nose ain’t quite as it ought to be, that’s Dick ’Umphries, the same that was cock of the middle-weights until Mendoza cut his comb for ’im.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The Movement Disorder Society version of the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS) Over the past week, have you usually been slow or do you need help with washing, bathing, shaving, brushing teeth, combing your hair or with other personal hygiene?

(MDS-UPDRS - Hygiene, NCI Thesaurus)

I fixed in the stumps so artificially, scraping and sloping them with my knife toward the points, that I made a very tolerable comb; which was a seasonable supply, my own being so much broken in the teeth, that it was almost useless: neither did I know any artist in that country so nice and exact, as would undertake to make me another.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his joints.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)