comb

From Middle English comb, from Old English camb (“comb”), from Proto-Germanic *kambaz (“comb”) (compare Saterland Frisian Koum, Swedish/Dutch kam, Norwegian 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)).

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kōm, IPA^(key): /kəʊm/
• (US) enPR: kōm, IPA^(key): /koʊm/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊm

comb (plural combs)

A comb for the hair.

1. A toothed implement for grooming the hair or (formerly) for keeping it in place.
   • 1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:

     There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved, put in curlers overnight, waved with hot tongs; […].

2. A machine used in separating choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers.
3. A fleshy growth on the top of the head of some birds and reptiles; crest.
4. A structure of hexagon cells made by bees for storing honey; honeycomb.
5. An old English measure of corn equal to the half quarter.
   • 1882, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, Vol.4, p.207:

     But the comb or half quarter is very general in the Eastern counties, particularly in Norfolk.

6. The top part of a gun’s stock.
7. The toothed plate at the top and bottom of an escalator that prevents objects getting trapped between the moving stairs and fixed landings.
8. (music) The main body of a harmonica containing the air chambers and to which the reed plates are attached.
9. A former, commonly cone-shaped, used in hat manufacturing for hardening soft fibre.
10. A toothed tool used for chasing screws on work in a lathe; a chaser.
11. The notched scale of a wire micrometer.
12. The collector of an electrical machine, usually resembling a comb.
13. One of a pair of peculiar organs on the base of the abdomen in scorpions.
14. The curling crest of a wave; a comber.
15. A toothed plate used for creating wells in agar gels for electrophoresis.
16. (weaving) A toothed wooden pick used to push the weft thread tightly against the previous pass of thread to create a tight weave.
17. (algebraic geometry) A connected and reduced curve with irreducible components consisting of a smooth subcurve (called the handle) and one or more additional irreducible components (called teeth) that each intersect the handle in a single point that is unequal to the unique point of intersection for any of the other teeth.

• (skin on head of birds): cockscomb, crest

• kemb
• kempt
• unkempt

• (skin on head of birds): caruncle, snood, wattle

• orling

comb (third-person singular simple present combs, present participle combing, simple past and past participle combed)

1. (transitive, especially of hair or fur) To groom with a toothed implement; chiefly with a comb.

   I need to comb my hair before we leave the house

2. (transitive) To separate choice cotton fibers from worsted cloth fibers.
3. (transitive) To search thoroughly as if raking over an area with a comb.

   Police combed the field for evidence after the assault

4. (nautical, intransitive) To roll over, as the top or crest of a wave; to break with a white foam, as waves.

From combination.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kɒmb/

comb (plural combs)

1. (abbreviation) Combination.

• IPA^(key): /kuːm/

comb (plural combs)

1. Alternative form of combe

• BMOC

Of unknown origin.[1]

• IPA^(key): [ˈt͡somb]

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: comb

comb (plural combok)

1. (anatomy) thigh

• combocska
• combos
• combú

• comb in Bárczi, Géza and László Országh: A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára (’The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language’). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962.

• combe, camb, kambe, cambe, kombe

From Old English camb, comb, from Proto-Germanic *kambaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵómbʰos (“tooth, row of teeth”)

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɔːmb/, /ˈkɔmb/
• (mainly Northern ME) IPA^(key): /ˈkamb/, /ˈkaːmb/

comb (plural combes)

1. A comb (toothed tool for holding or grooming hair)
2. An instrument similar to a comb used for differing things.
3. A comb or wattle (usually of a rooster)
4. A honeycomb (hexagonal structure of bees)
5. (rare) The top of a mount or rise.
6. (rare) The palm or the analogous part of the foot.

• hony combe
• kemben

• English: comb
• Scots: camb, came, kame, kaim, kem
• Yola: cowm

• “cōmb (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-10-31.

comb

1. Alternative form of camb