brush
/bɹʌʃ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.23 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
A piece of conductive material, usually carbon, serving to maintain electrical contact between the stationary and rotating parts of a machine.
Countable; Uncountable
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"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰers- Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *bʰr̥stís Proto-Germanic *bʰurstís 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-.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: brusshe, broisse, *brustia, *bursti, *burstiz, *bruscia
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /bɹʌʃ/
- British English: /bɹʌʃ/