brush

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.

Noun

  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.
    • She gave her hair a quick brush.
    • as leaves Do on the oak, have with one winter's brush Fell from their boughs - c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
  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.
    • 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...

    Synonyms: corposant

  5. Wild vegetation, generally larger than grass but smaller than trees. See shrubland.
    • 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. - 1906, Jack London, Before Adam,...
    • 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. - 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal...
  6. A short, possibly recurrent encounter or experience.
    • 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...
  7. The furry tail of an animal, especially of a fox.
    • They burned the old gun that used to stand in the dark corner up in the garret, close to the stuffed fox that always grinned so fiercely. Perhaps the reason why he seemed in such a ghastly rage was that he did not come...
    • We terrified the mare and foal; The fox stood still and far too bold - So we strung him up, brush neatly folded Mayhem, maybe. - 1988, “Mayhem Maybe”, in Ian Anderson (music), 20 Years of Jethro Tull, performed by...
  8. A tuft of hair on the mandibles.
  9. A short contest, or trial, of speed.
    • 1860, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage (originally published in Cornhill Magazine Mark and Lord Lufton had been boys together, and his lordship knew that Mark in his heart would enjoy a brush across the country quite...
    • […] got into a brush with a fast British cutter as they approached Cowes […] - 1950, Think, volumes 16-17, page 34:
  10. An instrument, resembling a brush, used to produce a soft sound from drums or cymbals.
  11. An on-screen tool for "painting" a particular colour or texture.
    • Your bitmap image appears along the painted stroke. If you'd like to permanently create a custom sprite brush, it's fairly easy to adapt an existing MEL file[…]. - 2007, Lee Lanier, Maya Professional Tips and...
  12. A set of defined design and parameters that produce drawn strokes of a certain texture and quality.
    • to download brushes for Photoshop

    Coordinate Terms: texture

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰers- Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *bʰr̥stís Proto-Germanic *burstiz Frankish *burstibor. Vulgar Latin *brustia Old French broissebor. Middle English brusshe English brush From Middle English brusshe, from Old French broisse (Modern French brosse), from Vulgar Latin *brustia, from Frankish *bursti, from Proto-Germanic *burstiz (“bristle”), or also Vulgar Latin *bruscia, from Proto-Germanic *bruskaz (“tuft, thicket, underbrush”), which could be from Proto-Indo-European *bʰrusgo-.

Forms

brushes

Derived

airbrush air-brush air brush antelope brush as daft as a brush badgerbrush bath-brush beard brush beebrush bitterbrush bog brush bottle brush bottlebrush bristle brush broad-brush broad brush brush head brushability brush away brushbar brush blade brush border brushbot brush bow

Verb

  1. To clean with a brush.
    • Brush your teeth.
  2. To untangle or arrange with a brush.
    • Brush your hair.
  3. To apply with a brush.
    • I am brushing the paint onto the walls.
  4. To remove with a sweeping motion.
    • She brushed the flour off my clothes.
    • Caliban: As wicked dew as e'er my mother brush'd / With raven's feather from unwholesome fen / Drop on you both![…] - 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies,...
  5. To touch with a sweeping motion, or lightly in passing.
    • Her scarf brushed his skin.
    • Some spread their sails, some with strong oars sweep / The waters smooth, and brush the buxom wave. - 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “(please specify |book=1 to 20)”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey...
    • Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. - 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker,...
  6. To clean one's teeth by brushing them.
    • Of course, Halloween does not have to be completely treatless. Plain chocolate candy is okay, provided you remember to brush afterwards. - 2000, USA Today, volume 129, numbers 2662-2673, page 92:

Forms

brushes brushing brushed

Related

broom comb

Derived

brushable brush aside brush back brushback brush by brush down brushed brusher brush-off brush off brush out brush over brush something under the carpet overbrush rebrush unbrush