Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A thin toothed strip, as of plastic, used to smooth, arrange, or fasten the hair.
  • noun An implement, such as one for dressing and cleansing wool or other fiber, that resembles a hair comb in shape or use.
  • noun A currycomb.
  • noun 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.
  • noun Something suggesting a fowl's comb in appearance or position.
  • noun A honeycomb.
  • intransitive verb To move a comb through (the hair) so as to arrange or groom.
  • intransitive verb To move through or pass across with a raking action.
  • intransitive verb To straighten and separate (wool or other fibers) using a comb.
  • intransitive verb To search thoroughly; look through.
  • intransitive verb To eliminate with or as with a comb.
  • intransitive verb To roll and break. Used of waves.
  • intransitive verb To make a thorough search.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See comb-flower.
  • noun 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.
  • noun Anything resembling a comb in appearance or use, especially for mechanical use.
  • noun The notched scale of a wire micrometer.
  • noun The window-stool of a casement.
  • noun 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.
  • noun Anything resembling in nature, shape, or position the caruncle on a fowl's head.
  • noun The pecten or marsupium in the interior of a bird's eye.
  • noun In mining, the division of the mass of a lode into parallel plates, or layers of crystalline material parallel to its walls.
  • noun The projection on the top of the hammer of a gun-lock.
  • noun The top corner of a gun-stock, on which the cheek rests in firing.
  • noun A honeycomb.
  • noun A dry measure of 4 bushels, or half a quarter.
  • noun A brewing-vat.
  • noun A more or less rounded, bowl-shaped hollow or valley inclosed on all sides but one by steep and in some cases perpendicular cliffs.
  • To subject to a process or action similar to that of combing, as in dredging: as, to comb oyster-beds.
  • To dress with a comb: as, to comb one's hair.
  • To card, as wool; hackle, as flax.
  • To grain with a painter's comb.
  • To roll over or break with a white foam, as the. top of a wave.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To disentangle, cleanse, or adjust, with a comb; to lay smooth and straight with, or as with, a comb. See under combing.
  • noun An instrument with teeth, for straightening, cleansing, and adjusting the hair, or for keeping it in place.
  • noun An instrument for currying hairy animals, or cleansing and smoothing their coats; a currycomb.
  • noun A toothed instrument used for separating and cleansing wool, flax, hair, etc.
  • noun The serrated vibratory doffing knife of a carding machine.
  • noun A former, commonly cone-shaped, used in hat manufacturing for hardening the soft fiber into a bat.
  • noun A tool with teeth, used for chasing screws on work in a lathe; a chaser.
  • noun The notched scale of a wire micrometer.
  • noun The collector of an electrical machine, usually resembling a comb.
  • noun 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.
  • noun One of a pair of peculiar organs on the base of the abdomen of scorpions.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English; see gembh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English camb ("comb"), from Proto-Germanic *kambaz (“comb”) (compare Swedish/Dutch kam, German Kamm), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵómbʰos (“tooth”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵómbʰ- (“to pierce, gnaw through”) (compare Tocharian B keme, Lithuanian žam̃bas ("sharp edge"), Old Church Slavonic зѫбъ (zǫbŭ), Albanian dhëmb, Ancient Greek γομφίος (gomphíos, "backtooth, molar"), Sanskrit जम्भ (jambha)).

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Examples

  • II. i.26 (189,3) you crow, cock, with your comb on] The allusion is to a fool's cap, which hath a _comb_ like a cock's.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • They do not sting like those of Castile and thus they easily remove the comb from the hives, which are small and not of cork, of which there is none in the country, but of the trunk of certain trees, bored or chiseled through lengthwise, with a very wide hole, so that it is left hollow.

    Did you know? Mexico's first tourists 2008

  • Upon reaching the house, the comb is put in a box and the bees settle in it to the ringing of the little bell.

    Honeybees: have they emigrated to Mexico? 2008

  • When the comb is taken from the tree it is placed in the middle of the cloth and carried by the four ends.

    Honeybees: have they emigrated to Mexico? 2008

  • When the comb is taken from the tree it is placed in the middle of the cloth and carried by the four ends.

    Honeybees: have they emigrated to Mexico? 2008

  • Upon reaching the house, the comb is put in a box and the bees settle in it to the ringing of the little bell.

    Honeybees: have they emigrated to Mexico? 2008

  • We wear all the protective gear so no need to worry, it just adds to how amazing these bees are, not to mention that honey straight from the comb is simply amazing.

    Life goes on in Bolivia. « Brandino’s Bolivia Blog 2008

  • They do not sting like those of Castile and thus they easily remove the comb from the hives, which are small and not of cork, of which there is none in the country, but of the trunk of certain trees, bored or chiseled through lengthwise, with a very wide hole, so that it is left hollow.

    Did you know? Mexico's first tourists 2008

  • We wear all the protective gear so no need to worry, it just adds to how amazing these bees are, not to mention that honey straight from the comb is simply amazing.

    2008 March « Brandino’s Bolivia Blog 2008

  • This darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollrock highroad roaring down, In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

    Archive 2007-07-29 2007

Comments

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  • For "comb jelly" see ctenophore.

    December 22, 2009

  • "comb" in Hungarian means: thigh

    August 1, 2012