comb
pronunciation
How to pronounce comb in British English:
UK [kəʊm]
How to pronounce comb in American English:
US [koʊm]
-
- Noun:
- a flat device with narrow pointed teeth on one edge; disentangles or arranges hair
- the fleshy red crest on the head of the domestic fowl and other gallinaceous birds
- a fleshy and deeply serrated outgrowth atop the heads of certain birds especially domestic fowl
- any of several tools for straightening fibers
- ciliated comb-like swimming plate of a ctenophore
- the act of drawing a comb through hair
-
- Verb:
- straighten with a comb
- search thoroughly
- smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb
Word Origin
- comb
- comb: [OE] Comb is an ancient word, which has been traced back to an Indo-European *gombhos. This appears to have signified ‘tooth’, for among its other descendants were Sanskrit jámbhas ‘tooth’ and Greek góphos ‘pin, tooth’. In prehistoric West and North Germanic it became *kambaz, which produced English comb, German kamm, and Dutch kam (probably borrowed into English in the 18th century as cam, originally ‘projecting cog-like part on a wheel for transferring motion’).The Old English verb formed from comb lasted dialectally as kemb until the 19th century, but today it survives only in unkempt. The origin of the word’s application to honeycomb, first recorded in the 13th century, is not known.=> oakum, unkempt
- comb (n.)
- Old English camb "comb, crest, honeycomb" (later Anglian comb), from Proto-Germanic *kambaz (cognates: Old Saxon and Old High German camb, German Kamm, Middle Dutch cam, Dutch kam, Old Norse kambr), literally "toothed object," from PIE *gombhos, from root *gembh- "to bite, tooth" (cognates: Greek gomphos "a molar tooth," Sanskrit gambha-s "tooth").
- comb (v.)
- late 14c. (implied in past participle kombid), verb derived from comb (n.); replacing the former verb, Old English cemban, which however survives in unkempt. Related: Combed; combing.
Example
- 1. A simplified graphic of a corresponding frequency comb is shown below .
- 2. The comb 's function is akin to a transmission 's gears .
- 3. And having crossed that material rubicon , comb makers never went back .
- 4. An actual optical comb does not begin at zero on left , but at a very high number , 300 trillion hertz .
- 5. Apply the gel to dry hair and use a comb to push your hair up and back , but don 't try to make it perfect .