comb

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A thin toothed strip, as of plastic, used to smooth, arrange, or fasten the hair.
2. n. An implement, such as a card for dressing and cleansing wool or other fiber, that resembles a hair comb in shape or use.
3. n. A currycomb.
4. n. The fleshy crest or ridge that grows on the crown of the head of domestic fowl and other birds and is most prominent in the male.
5. n. Something suggesting a fowl's comb in appearance or position.
6. n. A honeycomb.
7. v. To move a comb through (the hair) so as to arrange or groom: combed her hair with a comb; combed his hair with his fingers.
8. v. To move though or pass across with a raking action: The wind combed the wheatfields.
9. v. To card (wool or other fiber).
10. v. To search thoroughly; look through: combed the dresser drawers for a lost bracelet.
11. v. To eliminate with or as with a comb: combed the snarls out of his hair.
12. v. To roll and break. Used of waves.
13. v. To make a thorough search: combed through the file for the contract.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A thin strip of wood, metal, bone, ivory, tortoise-shell, etc., one or both edges of which are indentated so as to form a series of teeth, or to which teeth have been attached; or several such strips set parallel to one another in a frame, as in a currycomb. Combs are used for arranging the hair in dressing it; also, in a great variety of ornamental forms, for keeping women's hair in place after it is dressed; and for various other purposes. Those worn in the hair are often carved and elaborately decorated.
2. n. Anything resembling a comb in appearance or use, especially for mechanical use. Specifically— A card used in hand-carding or in a carding-machine for separating and dressing wool.
3. n. The notched scale of a wire micrometer.
4. n. The window-stool of a casement.
5. n. The fleshy crest or caruncle growing, in one of several forms, on the head of the domestic fowl, and particularly developed in the male birds: so called from its serrated indentures in the typical form, or single comb, which resemble the teeth of a comb. Several characteristic variations in the form of the comb have received distinctive names. An antlered comb is one having more or less the form of a stag's antlers, as seen in Polish and La Flèche fowls, often in Houdans, etc. The leaf-comb has much the form of a strawberry-leaf, set transversely on the head. It is the preferable form of comb in Houdan fowls. The pea-comb appears as if formed of three low, bluntly serrated combs set side by side on the head, the middle one of the three being the highest. It is the typical comb of the Brahma fowls. A rose-comb is a low comb set flat on the head, like a cap, broad in front, and tapering to a projecting spike behind, the upper part being evenly covered with small projections. It is best illustrated in the Hamburg fowls, and is also found in the Wyandotte, the Sebright bantam, and other varieties. The strawberrycomb resembles a half of a strawberry, generally somewhat wrinkled, and set well forward on the head. It is characteristic of the Malay and the Sumatra fowls.
6. n. Anything resembling in nature, shape, or position the caruncle on a fowl's head. Specifically— The similar but erectile and variable fleshy and vascular colored process growing over each eye of some gallinaceous birds, as ptarmigan and other grouse.
7. n. The pecten or marsupium in the interior of a bird's eye.
8. n. In mining, the division of the mass of a lode into parallel plates, or layers of crystalline material parallel to its walls. Some lodes have several such combs, symmetrically arranged, so that each comb on one side of the center of the mass has its counterpart on the other. Often the face of the comb turned toward the center of the lode is covered with well-developed crystals, and where the central combs meet a cavity studded with crystals is formed.
9. n. The projection on the top of the hammer of a gun-lock.
10. n. The top corner of a gun-stock, on which the cheek rests in firing.
11. n. A honeycomb.
12. To dress with a comb: as, to comb one's hair.
13. To card, as wool; hackle, as flax.
14. To grain with a painter's comb.
15. To roll over or break with a white foam, as the. top of a wave.
16. n. A dry measure of 4 bushels, or half a quarter.
17. n. A brewing-vat.
18. n. A more or less rounded, bowl-shaped hollow or valley inclosed on all sides but one by steep and in some cases perpendicular cliffs. The use of the word is closely limited to certain portions of south western England and Wales, and to a part of Ireland, especially to county Kerry, where the combs (there also called corries) are numerous and of great size, many of them containing lakes.
19. n. See comb-flower.
20. To subject to a process or action similar to that of combing, as in dredging: as, to comb oyster-beds.

Wiktionary

1. n. A toothed implement for grooming the hair.
2. n. A machine used in separating choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers.
3. n. A fleshy growth on the top of the head of some birds and reptiles; crest.
4. n. A structure of hexagon cells made by bees for storing honey; honeycomb.
5. n. An old English measure of corn equal to the half quarter.
6. n. The top part of a gun’s stock.
7. n. The toothed plate at the top and bottom of an escalator that prevents objects getting trapped between the moving stairs and fixed landings.
8. n. music The main body of a harmonica containing the air chambers and to which the reed plates are attached.
9. v. transitive To groom with a toothed implement; chiefly with a comb.
10. v. transitive To separate choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers.
11. v. transitive To search thoroughly as if raking over an area with a comb.
12. n. abbreviation Combination.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An instrument with teeth, for straightening, cleansing, and adjusting the hair, or for keeping it in place.
2. n. An instrument for currying hairy animals, or cleansing and smoothing their coats; a currycomb.
3. n. A toothed instrument used for separating and cleansing wool, flax, hair, etc.
4. n. The serrated vibratory doffing knife of a carding machine.
5. n. A former, commonly cone-shaped, used in hat manufacturing for hardening the soft fiber into a bat.
6. n. A tool with teeth, used for chasing screws on work in a lathe; a chaser.
7. n. The notched scale of a wire micrometer.
8. n. The collector of an electrical machine, usually resembling a comb.
9. n. The naked fleshy crest or caruncle on the upper part of the bill or hood of a cock or other bird. It is usually red.
10. n. One of a pair of peculiar organs on the base of the abdomen of scorpions.
11. n. The curling crest of a wave.
12. n. The waxen framework forming the walls of the cells in which bees store their honey, eggs, etc.; honeycomb.
13. n. The thumbpiece of the hammer of a gunlock, by which it may be cocked.
14. v. To disentangle, cleanse, or adjust, with a comb; to lay smooth and straight with, or as with, a comb. See under combing.
15. v. (Naut.) To roll over, as the top or crest of a wave; to break with a white foam, as waves.
16. n. That unwatered portion of a valley which forms its continuation beyond and above the most elevated spring that issues into it.
17. n. A dry measure. See coomb.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a flat device with narrow pointed teeth on one edge; disentangles or arranges hair
2. v. search thoroughly
3. n. any of several tools for straightening fibers
4. n. the fleshy red crest on the head of the domestic fowl and other gallinaceous birds
5. v. straighten with a comb
6. v. smoothen and neaten with or as with a comb
7. n. ciliated comb-like swimming plate of a ctenophore
8. n. the act of drawing a comb through hair